Jason Thibeault's Blog: From My Pen, page 13

Cloud Computing: The Really New is Sometimes Really Old

Posted in Tumblog

I think that most people believe cloud computing is a relatively new concept. Of course, those in the IT industry have scoffed at all the hype knowing that cloud (or distributed) computing has been around for a few decades. But based on the video below, it seems that the concept of cloud computing (called Polymorphic Computing) has actually been around since the 1950s. This video really brings to light how ideas sometimes take decades to slowly integrate into the fabric of im...

When You’ve Got Nothing Else To Do…You Animate Your Beard!

Posted in TumblogVideos

Posting this for nothing more than inspiring a few laughs

Teleportation Anyone?

Posted in Tumblog

It seems that world of quantum mechanics is full of surprises today as experiments are underway to make a glass ball exist in two places at the same time:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20712-how-to-be-in-two-places-at-the-same-time.html

The science fiction concept behind teleportation (ala StarTrek) has always posited the transfer of matter from one place to another which involves the conversion of the matter to energy, the transport of the energy, and the reassembly. A...

Pay With Your Phone? NFC 101.

Posted in Technology

It seems that MC is finally getting in on the game with NFC payments:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/exclusive-csi-virtual-mastercard-app-bringing-more-mobile-payme/

I know that for most Americans, this may seem like quite a bit of sci-fi and, what’s more, something inherently prone to security problems. But, quite the opposite, NFC is no less or more secure than providing credit card information online (in fact, with the recent spats of break-ins by notable hacking grou...

Getting to Digital Intimacy. Faster.

Posted in MarketingStorytelling

Digital intimacy. As marketers working to build our company’s long-term success, it’s what we are all after. We need to not only engage with our audience, but do so on a very personal level. But getting there is tough. We use Facebook and marketing analytics and targeted campaigns. All to get the attention of our audience. Which is really at the root of all this shift in digital marketing to storytelling. It’s all about figuring out a way to get from awareness t...

Are You Disruptive?

Posted in Human

We sometimes look at innovation in the bigger picture of markets and industries. But innovation, and the disruption it brings, begins with the individual. We must embrace it, want it, and ultimately, live it. Because it is within our own pursuit of disrupting our individual industries and markets that we find true success.

A really insightful and engaging piece on the Harvard Business Review blog by Whitney Johnson:

http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/2011/08/disrupt-yourself.html

An exc...

Is Your Data Really Yours?

Posted in HumanTechnology

With our growing penchant to produce more and more data (and the tools that enable us to), it begins to beg the question: do you own the data?

Of course, many people would say that they do. I put my pictures up into Facebook, they are still my pictures. Well, that’s true in the most basic sense but what about:

when the company deletes your data and backups are still there?
when you produce derivative works of that data (i.e., crop a picture) using the company’s software?...

When You Pay Cash, Prices Become Transparent

Posted in Healthcare

This blog post was originally published on KevinMD.com and brings up a really important issue in healthcare today: obfuscation. The cost of the entire flow is obscured making it nearly impossible to expose all the incremental charges that happen when a consumer pays for healthcare services using insurance. As I’ve written before, healthcare has created an industry of middlemen who are providing services with unknown value but which accumulate more and more cost that are ev...

Your Personal HealthCloud is Coming…

Posted in Healthcare

What happens when you start using your smartphone and wearable computing and web services to keep track of your health? Like fitness and weight-loss? Like blood pressure and heart rate? How about sleep patterns? We are beginning to use more and more of this technology not because we feel like we have to, but because it’s easier. It’s simpler. It’s more transparent. So what happens? You create a personal HealthCloud.

What’s a HealthCloud?

Simply put, a HealthCloud is a growin...

Hands-on with Pinterest

Posted in Hands On

When Pinterest first came out, I immediately blasted it. Why? Well, it seemed like just another free-flowing stream of information. And Twitter, FB, and G+ were already innundating me with a steady flow of info. But after receiving an invitation to join the site, I thought I would give it a whirl and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.

First, the interface is very intuitive. It’s easy to create boards, to share boards, to re-pin. And with multiple browser integrati...