Of Technology Dec

GE’s $15 trillion ‘industrial Internet’ 4 | Secret CIO: Always connected, always distracted 8 Answers to mobile app dev problems 16 | Is innovation too incremental? 20

THE BUSINESS VALUE OF TECHNOLOGY DEC. 17, 2012 Chief YearOf The From big league Wi-Fi to analytics-based scouting, CIO Bill Schlough keeps the San Francisco Giants ahead of the game p.10 By Fritz Nelson

Copyright 2012 UBM LLC. Important Note: This PDF is provided solely as a reader service. It is not intended for reproduction or public distribution. For article reprints, e-prints and permissions please contact: Wright’s Reprints, 1-877-652-5295 / [email protected] THE BUSINESS VALUE OFC TECHNOLOGYONT ENTS Dec. 17, 2012 Issue 1,354

COVER STORY 4 Global CIO Chief Of The Year What GE’s $15 trillion industrial Internet needs Bill Schlough and his IT team believe that tech innovation 10 plays a part in making the San Francisco Giants champions 8 Secret CIO What’s more important: taking in what’s online or what’s right in front of you? 20 Down To Business The Jolt Awards Our economic glass is more 16 These tools help mobile developers be more effective than half full Cover: Kim Kulish Kim Cover:

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2 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com globalCIO By Chris Murphy

What GE’s $15T Industrial Internet Needs ere’s a stat sure to become trial Revolution.” (Read Rob Preston’s time data and what-if scenarios: PowerPoint porn in the commentary on this subject on p. 20.) “What GE wants to offer is the ability months ahead: General People think of the Internet’s impact to ask, ‘Has any machine in our entire Electric predicts that the as centered on entertainment and so- system ever had X, Y and Z factors, and H“industrial Internet” could add $10 tril- cial networks, Annunziata says. That’s what happened four hours later?’ GE’s lion to $15 trillion to the world econ- why GE spends much of the report try- systems today would take about 30 days omy in the next 20 years. ing to quantify the industrial Internet’s to answer that question — if they could Indeed, $15 trillion is a “wow, that’s potential in terms of economic and even answer it. GE’s working to combine huge” number sure to be dropped into productivity growth. its data management and analytics soft- many a presentation, but it’s not the But this industrial Internet needs a ware with Hadoop-based data process- most important part of GE’s major new lot of technical and regulatory pieces to ing to deliver an answer in 30 seconds.” report on its industrial Internet vision. expand at the scale GE envisions. The most important part is why GE Based on my reading of the report, my Automation Must Increase would bother to calculate this projec- interview with Annunziata and Infor- As companies collect more data from tion and issue such a report. The rea- mationWeek’s reporting on the Internet more sources and then try to make son — beyond the marketing value — of things throughout this year, I think faster decisions with it, the complexity is that GE needs a whole lot of help the following changes must happen for soon exceeds humans’ ability to keep from other vendors, regulators, finan- GE’s growth vision to become reality. up, Annunziata says. People must con- ciers and users of technology before tinue to oversee the process, he says, this vision and its $15 trillion payoff Analytics Must Get Better but more machines need to automati- can come true. This report looks like This is No. 1 on Annunziata’s list of cally take actions. an attempt to rally an ecosystem. required technology advance- Automation requires more embed- GE describes an industrial ments. The cost of sensors is ded technology and, back to analytics, B A L C O I Internet where the ma- L O dropping, and the reach of better decision-making software. Au- chines it makes, such as jet G wireless and wired Internet tomation also points to the dark side of engines, power plant tur- is expanding. It’s getting the industrial Internet: Doing it right bines and MRIs, constantly cheaper and easier to gather means destroying a lot of manual jobs gather data and send it and transmit data. Data ana- and betting that economic growth cre- along over the Internet for lytics capabilities must improve ates enough new ones. analysis. The data might alert “to make sure the data that comes people to take action, like replace a available can be used in a productive People Need New Skills part that’s close to wearing out, or tell way,” Annunziata says. In GE’s report, Annunziata highlights three new job a machine to automatically take an ac- he describes this capability as “harness- growth areas: skills that cut across tradition, like slow down a turbine that isn’t ing the power of physics-based analyt- tional lines of engineering and software needed. The idea’s more broadly dis- ics, predictive algorithms, automation development, creating a new role like a cussed as the “Internet of things.” and deep domain expertise” to know “digital-mechanical engineer”; data sci- GE created the report in part because how machines and systems operate. entists, who specialize in fields from cy- the whole idea of Internet innovation is Startups and established vendors are bersecurity to pattern recognition to data under attack, says co-author and GE developing big data analytics to make visualization; and user interface experts, chief economist Marco Annunziata, and sense of the Internet of things, and do who can design human-machine inter- “we thought it was important to chal- so quickly enough to make a timely faces that make a job easier and people lenge this view.” The report cites North- business decision. GE’s own software more productive. western University professor Robert unit is among them. In an article earlier We recently wrote about how Ford is Gordon’s view that the “innovations of this year, here’s how we described one recruiting more electrical and software the Internet Revolution are simply not technology problem GE software is engineers to do this kind of engineer- as transformative as those of the Indus- working on, that of combining real- ing-plus-design work, as software be-

4 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com globalCIO comes a bigger part of why people buy But investing in the industrial Inter- industries. For aviation, it just created a car. As cars get more connected, such net is a microeconomic issue — com- a joint venture with Accenture called as sharing data car-to-car to know if panies make this decision one by one, Taleris to improve airplane operating there’s an accident or traffic jam ahead, project by project. The New York Times, efficiency by analyzing data to mini- these skills get more important. Com- in writing about GE’s industrial Internet mize downtime and waste. GE esti- panies such as GE and Ford need uni- concept, cited an example of a wind mates a 1% cut in fuel use would save versities to start training such specialists. farm operator upgrading its sensors and the airline industry more than $30 bil- optimization software, and netting a lion over the next 15 years. Policy-Makers And The Public modest 3% energy output gain. Infor- Two final things to consider about Must Be Convinced mationWeek earlier this year wrote about the business opportunity from the In- How much machine automation Union Pacific’s system to monitor train ternet of things. should people allow? We see this debate wheels and use analytics to predict fail- First, GE’s steps to spur an ecosystem beginning around Google’s self-driving ures, leading to a 75% drop in wheel- take a GE-centric view, focusing on the car. In financial markets, automated related derailments, but the next level industries where it sells products, so it’s high-speed trading creates controversy of investment and innovation hinges on way too narrow. Think about the agri- at times, such as the “flash crash,” when more effective sensors, better analytics culture industry using moisture sensors markets seem to overreact. and better data sharing to predict the to direct irrigation and thus use a lot less The risks are real, Annunziata says, effects on the entire rail network. water. This kind of “smart” irrigation is so we need “transparent public debate The corporate decision on whether to happening on a small scale already, but on how much control we are giving to invest in this technology brings us back it may become required by law amid machines.” Cybersecurity also becomes to the need for better analytics, more au- water shortages. How about cars that of vital public importance when it re- tomation and new skills, factors that will talk with traffic lights, roads and other lates to networked power plants, jet drive the ROI of these Internet of things vehicles, so that traffic can move more engines and healthcare equipment. GE projects. We are seeing companies take efficiently and relieve the gridlock in megacities from Mumbai to Sao Paulo? Whatever your industry, you’re likely to CEO Jeff Immelt predicts GE can grow see ways the competitive and regulatory landscape will change. ‘dollars per installed base’ by 4% to 5% Second, $15 trillion of growth sounds a year selling Internet-based services. lovely, but the Internet of things will de- stroy businesses, companies and jobs as surely as it creates them. Would better argues for cybersecurity regulation these steps and make incremental gains usage data reveal that your customers that’s less fragmented across states and with networked machines. But we need underutilize their machines, so they ac- countries. Again, it points to why GE an innovation ecosystem to kick in to get tually could buy 25% less if they used needs to make a case that the risks and anywhere near GE’s $15 trillion vision. them efficiently? Does your company economic disruption of a more net- We will get that ecosystem because for- rely on break-fix service revenue that worked and automated business world tunes will be made (and lost) based on data-driven preventive maintenance will pay off in economic growth. how companies react to this trend. could wipe out? Do you sell extended GE isn’t running an Internet of warranties that could become obsolete? Companies Must Invest things charity here. CEO Jeff Immelt These problems and opportunities GE’s report focuses mostly on predicts that the company can grow its point to the need for IT leadership in macroeconomics. Getting the U.S. “dollars per installed base” by 4% to this emerging innovation ecosystem economy back to the 3.1% productiv- 5% annually by selling services to com- around the Internet of things. ity growth rate of the 1995 to 2005 In- panies that buy GE locomotives, jet en- ternet boom, rather than the 1.6% rate gines, power plant turbines and med- Chris Murphy is editor of Infor ma tion - since then, drives its prediction of $10 ical machines. GE’s creating a new Week. A digital version of this article is trillion to $15 trillion in economic business to sell software and data man- at informationweek.com/chrismurphy. growth from the industrial Internet. agement and analysis services to those Reach him at [email protected].

6 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com SecretCIO By John McGreavy

Always Connected, But Always Distracted

ince I first became an IT man- impression I wanted to leave, espe- interesting that you notice this. You’re ager, I’ve taken pride in being cially because most of the attendees looking at yourself.” reachable pretty much at all were IT managers and supervisors, It was an eye opener. I didn’t see my- times. After all, I’m in the busi- many of whom aspire to become self in these other people. I have a rea- Sness of enabling fast, immediate and CIOs. So I had no choice but to pay son for constantly checking my phone, cost-effective communications of rele- attention to the conversations of the I reasoned. I manage technology for a vant information. moment. living, so I have an excuse. Today, our CEO, CFO and other One of the presenters echoed my And then I thought about the con- senior leaders, as well as my direct re- fondest self-help sentiment: It all starts ference session of the prior week. I reports, know they can email, call or text with me, not you or them. Stephen alized at that moment that it’s time for me anytime they need me and I’ll re- Covey’s Circle of Influence vs. Circle of me to make a change. I tried to put my spond. For instance, our email system Concern and his Habit No. 1: Be smartphone away for the next few days had a short, unplanned outage a few proactive. of my vacation. I still checked it regu- years ago on Christmas Eve, and I al- I was listening because I had put my larly, but far less frequently than I nor- ready knew the ETA to a fix by the laptop and smartphone away. My ac- mally would have. It was more difficult time our CEO left me a voice mail tion to appear in the moment actually than I thought, but it was a start. I sur- about it. His expectation was the same put me in the moment. It was an inter- vived, and so did my company. as mine: I would respond right away, esting experience. Change starts with which I did. me. I remember now. Find A Balance One day last year I took off to get A week later, I took a few days of The issue of the social and personal some chores done around the house. I vacation at a hotel in a warm climate. impact of technology is a bit above my academic acumen, so I’m not going to comment on that general topic. But for Take a step back and ask what’s more those of us who deliver and manage important: taking in what’s online enterprise IT services, consider this a or taking in what’s right in front of you? cautionary commentary. Being reachable 24/7 is critical for those in our profession, but there’s a balance. I was out in the yard for a couple of As my wife and I sat in the lobby bar, don’t know where the right balance hours and had left my BlackBerry in I noticed a couple nearby. They didn’t point is, I admit, but it’s not where it the garage. When I returned, I found speak to or look at each other for at has been. an urgent email from one of our divi- least an hour because they were too If you’re like me, it’s time to step back sional presidents about a personnel is- busy staring at their smartphones. I and ask what’s more important: taking sue I needed to address. I apologized noticed another young couple with a in what’s online or taking in what’s right for not responding earlier, and that’s small baby, and while the mother kept in front of you? I’m going to make a how I felt. Call me anytime, because I the baby entertained, her husband change, and I’m going to encourage the will respond. Count on it. was preoccupied with his smart- people I work with to do the same, be- At a conference I attended several phone. At one point, he looked up, cause change starts with me. weeks ago, I planned to get some work waved at the baby, and then returned done during the sessions. It’s a confer- to his device. A half-hour later, both The author, the real-life CIO of a bil- ence, right? I’ll just answer email while he and his wife were engrossed in lion-dollar-plus company, shares his I listen and learn, I figured. their phones while the baby played by experiences under the pseudonym John But the conference organizers had himself. McGreavy. Share a digital version of assigned seating, and everyone behind After making the observation to my this story and read others at information me would have been able to see me wife about these couples’ technological week.com/johnmcgreavy. Write to him working on email. This was not the detachment, she responded: “It’s very at [email protected].

8 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com Chief Of The Year From big league Wi-Fi to analytics-based scouting, CIO Bill Schlough keeps the San Francisco Giants ahead of the game.

By Fritz Nelson

very member of the San Quill, director of application develop- the CIO of the San Francisco Giants Francisco Giants IT de- ment, and eight other IT all stars also and InformationWeek’s 2012 Chief of partment has a 2010 made the Giants’ Western Division the Year: He believes. World Series ring, and one championship, playoff run and final day during the 2013 sea- sweep of the Detroit Tigers possible. The Player son they’ll also get their This notion may seem over the top, Schlough greets me dressed like a E2012 World Series rings. but it is what they believe, and they can banker, suited up for a short trip to Buster Posey, the National League’s draw the chalk lines from technology HP Pavilion for the San Jose Sports Most Valuable Player, Pablo Sandoval, initiatives to Commissioner’s Trophies, Hall of Fame induction reception. the World Series MVP, and 23 other from dynamic ticket pricing to the Dig- He’s chairman of the San Jose Giants, players were on the field, but Ken Lo- ital Dugout to a World Series victory, a Class A minor league team where gan, senior IT director, Dave Woolley, like Tinker to Evers to Chance. he served as interim CEO from

director of strategic IT initiatives, Dan That’s the magic of Bill Schlough, August 2011 through January 2012, Kulish Kim

10 Dec. 17, 2012 before hiring his successor. Giants for 14 years, but it seems high potential need new challenges. Schlough isn’t just a believer. He’s a unimaginable that a former Unix ad- “We don’t pigeonhole people,” he says. doer, a versatile executive who meets min could run a baseball team. Giants Adds operations VP Evans: “He has regularly with department heads such CEO Larry Baer says Schlough was the desire to grow. He doesn’t get satis- as baseball operations VP Bobby Evans chosen to run the San Jose team be- fied with where he’s at. He’s not afraid and sponsorship/business development cause of his versatility. “He has a to take chances to achieve big things.” VP Jason Pearl, as well as with sponsors breadth of understanding of baseball he insists on calling partners. He often and the sports industry that goes be- The Innovator speaks at their customer conferences. yond sports technology,” he says. To In a business where all that matters is Schlough has been the CIO of the Baer’s credit, he thinks employees with winning, what has Schlough, his IT or-

Get an online version of this story at informationweek.com/1354/chief informationweek.com Dec. 17, 2012 11 ganization and the Giants actually ac- censes the technology to StubHub. AT&T VP, won’t forget his first phone complished? Here are some highlights. While the Giants still make a small call from Schlough. “I knew I was in >> Dynamic ticket pricing: There’s profit from Double Play, Schlough con- trouble,” he says, “but I didn’t feel like no better, or more dangerous, intersec- siders it a fan service rather than a it.” That is, Schlough made Stenzel feel tion between a team and its customer business venture. like a partner in solving the problem. than ticketing, which usually begins on- >> One giant Wi-Fi hotspot: The To be clear, this wasn’t just about line and ends at a turnstile. And while Giants have also become the bellwether fans being able to access Facebook. it’s difficult to pick out a single IT inno- for enabling a digital fan experience at Schlough was concerned about em- vation among so many, the Giants were the ballpark, and a lightning rod for ployees being able to reach one an- a pioneer in this area. In 2000, when criticism. Baseball purists don’t cotton other, a matter of fan safety. It took al- AT&T Park opened, the Giants’ ticket- to dancing mascots, eardrum-bursting most the entire 2008 season for ing team, working with Schlough and music and other family-friendly enter- Schlough and AT&T to build up the the IT team, rolled out dynamic ticket tainment, and they can’t fathom why wireless infrastructure, and even then, pricing, where competitive forces drive fans need to use laptops and tablets at a Stenzel says, the problems didn’t go the cost of attending a ballgame. baseball game. But Giants fans live and away as demand continued to soar. If a game is part of a crucial series or breathe the fumes of Silicon Valley. Busi- ”Every year, it’s almost a rip and re- against an in-division rival, or the ness pros pound out emails between in- place,” Giants IT director Logan says. pitching matchup is especially com- nings; other fans update their social net- The wireless network extends from pelling, or the game is simply selling works and check scores and video the seats to the concession stands and out fast for whatever reason, ticket highlights from around the league. even outside the stadium. After all, prices rise — thanks to software from The Giants opened AT&T (formerly Stenzel notes, the “fan experience starts 5-year-old vendor Qcue. Conversely, Pacific Bell) Park in 2000, when mobile in the parking lot.” From Game 1 of prices fall if the game isn’t a big draw. Schlough openly admits the Giants borrowed the dynamic pricing idea Bill Schlough At A Glance from the airline industry. The organization won’t directly correlate revenue Education: BA in mechanical engineering from Duke University. MBA from the gains to the ticket pricing effort, but it’s Wharton School. worth noting that the Giants have sold Professional experience: At EDS (1992-1996) performed a variety of functions for out 100% of their home games since clients such as AMD, World Cup USA, General Motors and Kmart. At Booz Allen Hamil- Oct. 1, 2010, the second longest such ton (1998-1999) provided IT strategy and other consulting services to media/enter- streak in Major League Baseball (behind tainment industry clients. Since 1999, senior VP and CIO of San Francisco Giants. the Boston Red Sox). The Giants’ paid Other affiliations: Board member of Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, where attendance in 2012 came to 3.3 million. he played a key role in getting San Francisco into contention to host the 2012 and Meantime, the team has increased 2016 Summer Olympics. Board member of Junior Achievement of Northern California season ticket sales from 21,000 in (since 2003). Media center technical supervisor for 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt 2010 to 28,000 in 2011 and 29,000 in Lake City. 2012. Knowing that season ticket Recent books read: Seth Godin’s The Dip and Marshall Goldsmith’s What Got You holders don’t normally attend every Here Won’t Get You There. game, the Giants created a secondary online ticket market, called Double Play Ticket Window, in 2000, before was in its relative infancy and modern the 2010 World Series through the StubHub existed. Working with a now- social networking didn’t exist. As early 2012 season, the Giants and AT&T defunct SAP-Intel joint venture called as 2004, Schlough sculpted a wireless boosted network capacity to handle an Pandesic, the Giants invented a way to experience for fans, even if only a almost eightfold increase in traffic, activate and deactivate the bar codes handful of them were on the network. from 55 GB to 433 GB. on tickets, making exchanges simple But on opening day of 2008, several Quill, the Giants’ app dev director, and safe. After Pandesic went bust in months after the advent of the iPhone, remembers when fans started stream- 2000, the Giants built the platform the ballpark’s network was saturated. ing the games in the ballpark, putting again in partnership with Tickets.com, Luckily, the Giants had a partner even more stress on the network. The which was subsequently acquired by with both the resources and the moti- Giants worked with MLB’s Advanced MLB Advanced Media, which now li- vation to help: AT&T. Terry Stenzel, an Media group to arrive at the ability to

12 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com CHIEF OF THE YEAR [COVER STORY]

MLB Advanced Media (BAM) is beginning to let a handful of teams — the Gi- ants among them — take the concept further with Sportvision’s Fieldf/x, a video system that helps teams analyze player reaction times, or what Evans calls biomechanics. “You’re going to be able to get an amazing matrix on speed and response time,” says app dev director Quill, adding that Fieldf/x “will revolutionize how defense is analyzed,” like how fast an outfielder comes in for a ball, moves laterally or reacts to line drives. “In Schlough’s IT team celebrates some cases, it’s just making the data [the Giants’ World Series win more accurate, and in other cases it’s giving us information that just didn’t cache some of that video locally to re- balloting — it returned 20 years later.) exist before.” lieve some of the traffic pressure. Schlough is unapologetic. Indeed, While BAM CEO Bob Bowman is >> The “big rig”: There are several he’s gleeful that players such as left careful to note that MLB plays no team ways to look at what The Los Angeles fielder Melky Cabrera (No. 4 in the vot- favorites, he says Schlough and his or- Times called “baseball’s big rig,” a ref- ing a week earlier — this was a month ganization have two essential qualities erence to the clever method Schlough before he was suspended for 50 games when it comes to digital media: ideas and his team employed to help deliver after testing positive for steroids) and and execution. “They always say yes,” a few Giants players to last season’s All- third baseman Sandoval (whose stats at he says. Star game. the time paled in comparison to those Fieldf/x generates a million records Online fan voting is theoretically of the Mets’ David Wright) were voted per game. Schlough does the math for limited to 25 times per person, and the All-Star game starters. Such selections me: 30 frames per second, tracking biggest baseball markets have always build player and team morale, he ra- nine defensive players, the home plate had the advantage. In 2012, MLB al- tionalizes. So what if a little technology umpire, a batter and the ball, multi- lowed mobile balloting for the first greased the skids? plied by the amount of time a game time. “What other park in the world Evans, the Giants’ VP of operations takes (about 30 minutes of action). has the infrastructure to be able to tell and a 20-year team veteran, is a little Quill says that when teams accumulate our fans to pull out their mobile de- more cautious. He doesn’t want any- three years’ worth of data — enough to vices and vote right now,” Schlough one, especially the All-Star players, to give them a high level of confidence in says. And that’s what the Giants did, think they didn’t earn their votes. “The that data — we’ll be talking about 5 bil- starting with a big series with the Los players who got in deserved it,” he lion records. As Quill and Schlough Angeles Dodgers a week before the says, noting that Cabrera was leading like to point out, 5 billion records is on voting period closed. the league in batting average at the par with the amount of data a typical The Giants built a voting command time (and was named the All-Star bank deals with. Indeed, when we met center, via kiosks located around the game’s MVP); Sandoval eventually was last month Schlough was due to meet park, and they encouraged mobile vot- the World Series MVP; and the third with the head of a large bank’s data an- ing during games over the high-defin- Giant voted an All-Star starter, Posey, alytics operations, at the bank’s request. ition scoreboard. Vote often, the Giants ended up earning the league’s MVP. Mix into that data pool the stats every told fans. (Major League Baseball has a >> Big data: Baseball, more than any team tracks, as well as the information rich tradition of cities stuffing the All- other sport, is a game of statistics, one teams are starting to collect about fans, Star ballot box. The Cincinnati Enquirer put on steroids (sorry, Melky) by the including social media activity and famously started a campaign in 1957 wide embrace of “sabermetrics” of Mon- ticket purchasing/sales patterns, and in which it sent prefilled ballots to bars eyball fame. While teams evaluate fac- we’re talking about a big data (and stor- throughout Cincinnati. After the Reds tors such as player performance and op- age) problem. It’s the IT organization’s monopolized the All-Star roster, MLB timal positioning on the field by biggest challenge right now, Quill says.

Dec. 17, 2012 13 league’s big data, which his organiza- HD video scoreboard, Schlough says, City Hall stage. The final product, tion centralizes and manages, requires after the Braves and the Marlins. But which you can view at information teams to be “ready to move not within replacing all of the stadium’s TVs with week.com/1354/giants, is stunning. hours, but maybe within minutes and HD sets transformed the fan experi- preferably in seconds.” ence, he says. “It’s that simple to me,” The Integrator >> Scouting: Quill has been in every he says. “Change out the TVs and the When I met with Schlough in No- Giants draft room since 1999. “My sys- park feels new.” vember, he and his team had already tems have been used in the draft MLB’s Bowman also talks about an- cooked up 50 IT projects for the off- room,” he says, “and that draft room other aspect of video: delivering live season, and they had yet to meet with created Buster Posey, it created [Madi- video captured in the ballpark, which the team’s various departments. Many son] Bumgarner, created [Matt] Cain 10 the Giants have been doing for years. of those projects, he says, are fairly bor- years ago. All of those were related to Bowman’s goal is to capture video, edit ing: upgrading the Microsoft Exchange how we scouted and how the organiza- it and deliver it to the 2 million system, adding storage, shoring up dis- tion figured out how to pick those play- MLB.com subscribers within 20 sec- aster recovery. After they woke me up, ers, and we assisted in that process.” onds. The league can embed an ad, de- I also heard about plans to deliver Quill has worked with Evans and the liver the video to mobile devices and, video and data to iPads, which players rest of the baseball operations staff to in- of course, generate revenue. And and managers carry around, and about corporate various systems, including Schlough’s AT&T Park infrastructure delivering a better mobile experience Fieldf/x and Sportvision’s Pitchf/x, into makes such delivery, even live look-ins overall (Quill’s team takes an HTML5 the Giants’ scouting process. Beyond to other games, possible. approach). picking players, the IT organization’s After the Giants swept the Tigers in Schlough wouldn’t go into details, data and video analyses extend to ad- the World Series, Schlough’s team pro- but the Giants endured a cyber attack vanced scouting, like figuring out how duced a 360-degree interactive video of during the World Series, so he’s also to pitch the Tigers and who to trade for. the victory parade. With only two days focused on enhancing the company’s >> High-definition video: It’s hard to get the video done, it mounted three password and mobile device policies. to say whether AT&T Park was the cameras: one on the windshield of San- The Giants are replacing the home- first to go 100% HD. The Giants were doval’s vehicle, one on a golf cart and grown CRM system they’ve used for the third MLB team to introduce an one on the front of the podium at the years, containing information on

OUTSIDERS’ VIEW Innovating, Leading Like ‘The Bill Walsh Of IT’ ill Schlough is well connected in sports IT circles. It’s Winborn is now the CIO of the Dallas Cowboys. “I would worth noting that the top IT execs of the Los Angeles not be here without his mentoring,” Winborn says of Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, two fierce in-di- Schlough, who’s one of the first people he calls with tough vision rivals, agreed immediately to speak with me problems. Babout the Giants’ CIO. Ralph Esquibel, the senior director of technology for the Steve Reese, VP of IT for the Padres, says Schlough’s greatest hated Los Angeles Dodgers, says the Giants “have without a impact has been helping baseball understand “that IT should doubt been innovators in the league,” and that while baseball be part of the business process.” Schlough drives initiatives hasn’t been on the top of the innovation curve, “Bill doesn’t that aren’t just disruptive to the way traditional organizations fit that mold. ... He has tended not to follow the herd ... and think, Reese says, but that also impact the bottom line. they’ve been rewarded.” Reese goes so far as to call Schlough “the Bill Walsh of IT,” The Giants’ technology prowess has rubbed off on many referring to the former San Francisco 49ers head coach, who baseball franchises. Esquibel says the Dodgers are building not only was an offensive football genius, but whose progeny the largest stadium wireless infrastructure in North America is a who’s who of former NFL coaches, including Mike Holm- — more than double what the Giants have. Esquibel has a big gren, George Seifert and Dennis Green. challenge on his hands, given that Dodger Stadium is the One of Schlough’s protégés is John Winborn, whom he third-oldest stadium in Major League Baseball, but he’s un- hired in 1999 as a desktop support specialist and later pro- daunted — a reflection of the pace Schlough has set for moted to MIS director, before seeing him off to the Padres. everyone else. —Fritz Nelson ([email protected])

14 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com CHIEF OF THE YEAR [COVER STORY]

700,000 customers, with Sales - and won the Kevin Deford Gorter Me- force.com. They’ve also moved to a morial Award, given to the athlete who new ticketing platform, and these two has contributed the most to sports at systems (ticketing and CRM) will come Tech Me Out the university. Friend Christian Laet- together at a few points. The team is To The Ballgame tner, winner of a college basketball na- testing mobile point-of-sale systems in tional championship and Olympic stores, for example. Number of wireless gold medal, doesn’t have one of those. The goal is to integrate all customer 334 access points at AT&T At EDS, Schlough worked on the soc- data, from ticket purchasers to callers Park cer World Cup. into the Giants’ ShoreTel VoIP system, Number of HD TVs at But Bill Schlough, the technology and to “track the value of every cus- the park executive and sports enthusiast, is best tomer and accurately assess the likeli- 577 viewed as a leader who brings purpose hood of losing that customer, or how GB of data that park and humility to that calling. to retain that customer,” Schlough 805 spectators moved via Woolley, the Giants’ director of says. The organization wants to cater Wi-Fi during Giants’ two strategic IT initiatives, says Schlough is to each customer based on past behav- World Series home games “a CIO, a VP, but he’s the type of guy ior and interaction. Total unique visitors who leads by example. He’ll be right The Giants just hired a social media 870K to the park’s Wi-Fi there when we have to clean out a director, who reports to three people: network at Giants closet.” Woolley remembers when one the heads of communications, revenue games in 2012 season of the Giants’ sites in Arizona was and marketing. But he works most down. Schlough volunteered immedi- closely with Schlough. The Giants are ately to get on a plane. “He’ll do what- building a physical social media hub in Angeles when he was named to the ever it takes to help the team.” the ballpark. Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal’s Logan quipped about the Arizona Schlough wants to install mobile de- 2010 “Forty under 40.” trip: “He probably did it for the miles.” vice charging stations at the ballpark I confess that it’s difficult to find Anne Cribbs, CEO of the Bay Area — he tells me purposefully, because if flaws in the man. Either that or he’s got Sports Organizing Committee, says I report it, he says, he’ll be committed something on just about every associ- Schlough is adept at building consen- to following through. ate I talked with. sus, especially among those with big How about this: He doesn’t really egos. Other associates and direct re- The Stalker? like music, and doesn’t listen to it. ports describe him with words like Bill Schlough is impeccable. His of- String him up! “progressive” and “structured.” Before fice, bursting with books and memora- On the morning I met with I left AT&T Park, he provided me with bilia, feels a little cluttered, but every- Schlough, he was up early stalking a breakdown of help desk trouble tick- thing has its place, like his bulletin Randy Petersen, founder of InsideFlyer ets and an example of the day-of-game board with inspirational quotes. Several and Milepoint and, according to support manual. I hadn’t asked for awards and plaques hang on the wall, Schlough, the god of frequent fliers. such things, but he must have thought but they’re hidden. His notes and proj- Schlough set a goal early in his career it would be helpful. ects are organized in neat stacks. to fly 1 million miles, and after achiev- Schlough is also someone who I had planned to ask him about men- ing that milestone got United Airlines “pushes limits,” says Pearl, who heads tors, but he beats me to the punch, list- CEO Jeff Smisek (the boss of a friend) up sponsorships for the Giants. ing among them his late mother-in-law, to sign Schlough’s Up In The Air movie “He doesn’t see roadblocks. He sees whom he describes as someone who la- poster. And now he landed Petersen. opportunity.” beled everything and sweated the small One more signature to go: George Baseball, it is said, is a game of stuff. One of his heroes is Pierre de Clooney’s. (I’ll take the bet that inches. A little white ball traveling 90 Coubertin, who founded the Interna- Schlough gets that one, too.) miles per hour, a skinny stick. Your tional Olympic Committee, and he’s a Schlough is an Ironman triathlete arm, his eye. A stare, a blink, a swing. disciple of Gary Rogers, the former and dreams of qualifying for and com- Bill Schlough can’t miss. CEO of Dreyer’s Ice Cream, who’s a big peting in the annual world champi- believer in empowering teams. onship in Kona, Hawaii. Sports has al- Write to Fritz Nelson at fritz.nelson Schlough invited eight of his mentors ways been a big part of his life. In @ubm.com. Read more stories by him at to join him at his banquet table in Los college at Duke, he played club sports informationweek.com/fritznelson.

Dec. 17, 2012 15 The Jolt Award Goes To ... These 6 tools help mobile developers be more effective.

he rapid ascent of handheld gives out annually in six categories. but by enabling them to use a familiar devices as a platform for soft- Here are three finalists, two Jolt Pro- language and known building blocks, ware development has created ductivity Award winners and the Jolt MonoTouch provides a significant ad- an entire industry of new Award for top product. vantage. Plus, MonoTouch offers true Ttools. One type provides services to de- Finalist: Xamarin MonoTouch for garbage collection, a feature that Objec- velopers such as monitoring usage, iOS. MonoTouch, from Xamarin, offers tive-C developers still must contend pushing updates or ads to deployed C# and .NET developers a far easier with regularly. apps, and providing cloud storage. path to iOS application development The MonoDevelop IDE is adequate for The other type of tool provides the than the alternative of learning Objec- coding, though it’s no Visual Studio or nuts and bolts for writing and develop- tive-C and the Cocoa Touch framework. even Xcode IDE. But it has enough to get ing mobile apps, and these are the fo- In reality, .NET developers using Mono- developers up and running quickly. For cus of the Jolt Awards, which Dr. Dobb’s Touch still need to learn those things, C# developers who haven’t the time or

Read a longer analysis of the Jolt winners at drdobbs.com/1354/jolt

16 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com the inclination to bite the Objective-C Windows; Mono for Android lives as an to reuse code between Mono for An- bullet and learn native iOS develop- add-on within the Microsoft Visual Stu- droid and MonoTouch applications — ment, but still need to convert their cor- dio IDE. That means .NET developers because Mono for Android can use porate or customer-facing apps to the who have an arsenal of optimal .NET ed- many .NET libraries. iOS platform, MonoTouch offers a less- iting tools and muscle-memory short- Jolt Productivity Award: Sencha painful alternative to the Apple way. cuts don’t have to learn a new develop- Touch. Not long ago, it seemed that Finalist: RunRev LiveCode. Mobile- ment environment for creating Android HTML5 would be the key to writing device developers face a difficult choice: apps. Finally, developers should be able portable mobile apps. Now this seems Run on just one platform, support mul- tiple code bases or adopt a development tool that handles the platforms for you. RunRev LiveCode, a tool with a decades-long pedigree, will be of par- ticular interest to developers picking this last option. Although developers are essentially writing to one platform — LiveCode itself — it’s fair to charac- terize the system as platform-agnostic. The IDE doesn’t care if you develop on Windows, Linux or a Mac. It’s even less choosy about where you deploy; depending on the edition you buy, your app can run on iOS, Android, Win- dows, OS X, Linux or over the Web. (There’s even support for embedding logic on a server.) If you need cross-platform app development, and especially if you want nonprogrammer participa- tion, RunRev LiveCode is a great tool. Finalist: Xamarin Mono for An- droid. After great success with Mono- Touch for iOS, Xamarin turned its expertise to Android. But unlike Mono - Touch (with its C# versus Objective-C value proposition), Mono for Android is a harder sell. First, Android’s SDK and tools already run on Windows. Also, there’s not as much of a program- ming language difference between C# and Android’s Java as there is between C# and iOS — and they both support garbage collection equally well. Finally, the resources needed by a Mono for Android app for even the simplest mobile app far exceed that of a native Java-constructed Android app. But Mono for Android still is a keeper for .NET developers. It’s easier to make the leap to Android using Mono for An- droid than the Eclipse+Android SDK combination. And unlike MonoTouch for iOS, there is no dedicated IDE for

Dec. 17, 2012 17 [DR. DOBB’S REPORT] MOBILE DEVELOPMENT

highly unlikely due to several factors, including the difficulty of reproducing the UI to make it look native. Sencha Touch 2.0 addresses some of these limitations. It slickly hides platform details while providing an abstraction layer atop the raw details of HTML5 and JavaScript, letting developers build good-looking, well-architected apps with a minimum of busywork. Sencha Touch 2.0’s clever combination of technologies helps build apps that are HTML-based and cross-platform, but offer a user experience very much like a native app. Productivity Award: Appcelerator Titanium Studio. Al- though it’s another Eclipse-based IDE for developing mobile applications using native tools, Titanium Studio provides integrated toolchains for Android and iOS application development that span from project management through to distribution packaging, including deployment to cloud ser vices and app stores. Security, enterprise extensions and more re- sponsive support come with the three paid packages. Titanium Studio does useful things in the background, such as coordinating authentication keys between cloud application setup and application manifest. For most developers, especially those accustomed to using Microsoft Visual Studio, the Titanium Studio’s tool integration and complete- ness provide a familiar and highly productive setting. Jolt Award: Adobe PhoneGap. Ever since the release of the iOS SDK, smartphone software development and distribution has been stuck in obscure languages, incompatible operating systems and centralized control. Adobe PhoneGap challenges the status quo by opening up app development to the masses of Web and JavaScript developers. Adobe PhoneGap is in a class of tools known as “native app bridging frameworks.” These are platforms for creating native mobile apps using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The open source PhoneGap lets Web developers write their apps once and then deploy them as native apps on seven different platforms. As native applications, the Web apps can take advantage (through JavaScript) of smartphone features such as the camera, file uploads, compass, contacts and notifications that aren’t yet available from mobile Web browsers. PhoneGap implements APIs for native phone features using the latest proposed W3C standards for browsers wherever possible. The big idea is that, someday, every mobile browser will support these standards, so the code you write for PhoneGap will continue to work without Phone- Gap. PhoneGap’s creators have said that “the ultimate purpose of PhoneGap is to cease to exist.” Because of the qual- ity of implementation, the thoughtful design and the understanding of mobile developers’ needs, PhoneGap wins this year’s Jolt Award for mobile tools. — Deirdre Blake, Jonathan Harley, Chris Minnick, Mike Riley and Rick Wayne contributed to this article.

18 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com from the editor down toBusiness By Rob Preston Our Economic Glass Is More Than Half Full e’ve been hearing for 1970s up to the 2000s,” they write, ing the waters by firing a few torpedoes. three decades about the “masked the relative stagnation of en- At least Kasparov and Thiel give the coming Asian Century ergy, transportation, space, materials, IT industry some props — sort of. “To- and the inexorable de- agriculture and medicine.” day when people say ‘tech’ they think clineW of the U.S. as an economic power. Really? of a small cohort of computer-related First it was Japan that was poised to eat Stem cell research is the integrated companies rather than the continuing our lunch, then Korea, then India, now circuit of modern healthcare, a seminal transformation of every industry that China. The pessimists have been get- breakthrough that promises to drive in- people envisioned back in the 1950s,” ting grimmer of late, predicting long- novative cures for decades to come. Is they lament. Perhaps the reason people term U.S. economic stagnation as do- the mapping of the human genome an don’t think of the likes of FedEx, John mestic innovation stalls and jobs “incremental” advance? What about Deere and Union Pacific when they scatter to the lowest-cost countries. techniques for tapping billions of gal- think “tech” is because those compa- In a recent column for the Financial lons of previously inaccessible natural nies’ profound IT-based advances are Times, Garry Kasparov and Peter Thiel gas and oil reserves? What about the now so engrained in the customer ex- argue that true innovation-led eco- launch of the Hubble telescope and the perience or are so embedded in their nomic and social progress is a thing of automated exploration of Mars and supporting infrastructures that people the past. Ever since the breakthroughs other planets? What about the mass just take those advances for granted. of the 1950s and ’60s (jet aviation, the production of electricity-powered cars, Technology’s ability to transform integrated circuit, nuclear power, com- and Google’s self-driving prototype? companies and industries isn’t a func- munications satellites), the U.S. has The world’s population has doubled tion of how high profile it is, but how “discarded a century of can-do ambi- since 1970, partly because healthcare valuable it is in improving products (simple online package tracking, remote diagnoses of vehicle problems, efficient The pessimists are underestimating the and reliable freight hauling), as well as power of IT and other advances to propel in improving supply chain, manufactur- ing, distribution, sales, marketing and long-term economic growth and prosperity. other horizontal functions — without sticking out like a sore thumb. tion built on rapid advances in technol- advances have lengthened life spans, ogy and replaced it with a cautiousness and somehow food supplies managed Economic ‘Headwinds’ far too satisfied with incremental im- to keep pace — all while the agricul- In a far more rigorous paper pub- provements,” the authors argue. ture industry stagnated? lished in September by the Centre for The column is breathtaking in its Thiel’s a sharp guy and a contrarian Economic Policy Research, North - sweeping, unsupported generalizations thinker. I extrapolated on his provoca- western University professor Robert J. and its omission of countless examples tive “education bubble” thesis in a col- Gordon is even more pessimistic than to the contrary. Apparently lost on Kas- umn last year, in which I argued that the Kasparov and Thiel. Gordon argues that parov, a former chess champion beaten market for higher education services is the U.S. economy may grind to near in his prime by a masterfully pro- ripe for technology disruption. Kas- zero growth long term as it runs into six grammed supercomputer, and Thiel, a parov, the Russian chess grandmaster “headwinds”: demographics (including co-founder of PayPal, a product of the and political activist, is no intellectual an aging workforce); rising inequality; Internet revolution that has trans- slouch either. Which makes their Finan- globalization (and the resulting “factor formed how people pay for goods and cial Times diatribe all the more perplex- price equalization”); more expensive services, is the irony of their position ing. It says at the end of their column education and poorer performance in given their own run-ins and rich expe- that they were due to participate that secondary schools; onerous environ- riences with innovative technology. evening in a debate on technology at the mental regulations and taxes; and mas- “The genuine progress in IT from the Oxford Union, so maybe they were test- Continues on p. 19

20 Dec. 17, 2012 informationweek.com down toBusiness Continues from p. 20 sive national and household debt. novation pessimism that turned out to lot of technical and regulatory pieces to Gordon slices the past 250 years into be wildly wrong,” including comical (in expand at the scale GE envisions.” three industrial revolutions: the first be- hindsight) underestimations of the po- One argument is that the level of tween 1750 and 1830 that saw the cre- tential of the telephone, talking pictures mass automation implied by the indus- ation of the steam engine, cotton spin- and computers. But he ignores one of trial Internet will kill at least as many ning and railroads; the second between history’s most woeful economic fore- jobs and sap at least as much economic 1870 and 1900 around the inventions casts: Thomas Malthus’s 18th century growth as it creates. MIT professor Erik of electricity, the internal combustion claim that population growth would Brynjolfsson, author of Race Against The engine and running water; and the com- soon overwhelm man’s ability to pros- Machine, argues that while productivity puter and Internet revolution of the past per, even subsist. Malthus, of course, and wealth continue to rise, unemploy- 40 years. “The fact that so many funda- never anticipated the productivity accel- ment is higher than it was a decade ago mental one-time-only inventions have eration of the coming industrial and and the average person with a job is already occurred limits the potential for technological revolutions. And the pes- making less, in large part because IT al- a continuing stream of equally basic in- simists of today do much of the same. ready can do many tasks that both un- ventions,” he writes. “Such essential im- skilled and skilled workers used to do. provements of human life as the conver- The GE Vision Unfortunately for those marginalized sion from rural to urban life, the speed In the face of such pessimism, Gen- or replaced, innovation often brings of travel, the temperature of rooms, and eral Electric’s recent prediction of an- about creative destruction. The Inter- the near-elimination of brute-force man- other industrial revolution is refresh- net, for instance, turned my own media ual labor have already been achieved.” ing. Critics will call GE’s “industrial industry upside down, tearing jobs and Gordon’s “one-time-only” assertion Internet” vision, laid out in November hundreds of billions of dollars of mar- is reminiscent of the canard attributed in a 37-page paper, mere “incremental” ket cap from the likes of Time Warner, to the U.S. patent office czar at the turn innovation. But the additional $10 tril- New York Times Co., McGraw-Hill, of the 20th century: that just about lion to $15 trillion in economic output Times Mirror, CBS and News Corp. and transferring it to the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon.com. Creative destruction will turn companies But creative destruction brings many opportunities as well. Even manufac- and industries upside down, but in the long turing, long thought to be the province run it will yield more winners than losers. of China and other low-cost countries, is starting to come back to the U.S. as the industry becomes less about low- everything that can be invented already GE foresees it generating over the next skill labor and more about tech-based has been. Why is Gordon assuming 20 years is hardly small potatoes. automation, requiring a new set of that the coming decades won’t bring As my colleague Chris Murphy ex- highly trained and skilled workers. yet another unpredictable industrial plains on p. 4, the industrial Internet, Economic progress is never neat and revolution that will cut through those otherwise known as the “Internet of tidy. There are always winners and los- stiff economic headwinds (and even things,” is a catch-all term for compa- ers, advances and setbacks. But I’m bet- ride some of them, like globalization) nies and organizations instrumenting ting that technology and other innova- and drive a new era of growth and all manner of machines and infrastruc- tions will spawn far more positive prosperity? Did the captains of Indus- ture (cars, farm equipment, power outcomes long term than negative ones. trial Revolution No. 2 — the likes of plant turbines, roads, electricity grids, As we celebrate the holidays, I wish you Edison, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford soybean fields, MRI systems) to collect all many happy returns. — see the coming IT revolution and its data; transmitting that data in near real myriad economic and social advances? time over wired and wireless networks; Rob Preston is VP and editor in chief of “No one should step into the trap of and then applying analytics to it to as- InformationWeek. Share a digital ver- predicting that innovation will come to sess what needs fixing, replacing, sion of this story and read others at an end,” Gordon concedes, pointing to rerouting, watering, etc. But as Murphy informationweek.com/robpreston. some “classic examples in the past of in- notes, “the industrial Internet needs a Write to Rob at [email protected].

Dec. 17, 2012 19