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Ancelus and Swarm Database Theory – the Answer to Big Data Barriers

Old-style IBM 5 MB portable hard drive

Big Data – now officially designated a Gartner “tipping point technology” that will force innovation-- has led companies dependent on Oracle and other relational databases to the proverbial impenetrable brick wall. As the cost and size of storage dropped, the capacity for massive—huge to the point of incomprehension—data collection has outstripped the ability to strategically store, categorize and access data in a meaningful and productive way.

As John Layden, CEO of Time Compression Strategies puts it:  “The hardware guys won’t be riding to the rescue this time.” 

Layden rightly argues that companies are running out of options. Almost all companies with billions invested in relational databases are struggling to serve up work-around strategies for Big Data. The problem, he says, is that work-around solutions are expensive, and they are but band-aids barely patching up a monstrous problem. Current relational databases keep trying for linear improvements to an exponential problem. And, Layden says, since mortal human beings can’t bend the laws of physics, that means that the old way of doing things through old-style structured databases is doomed.

John continues: “But as the brick wall approaches, many large database companies are feverishly linking physical databases together in different forms and setups. If you get nervous about the fragile digital lash-up, some say simply put it in “the cloud.” 

“However, in terms of solving Big Data problems, the “cloud” is just a way to tell you not to look behind the curtain to the larger problem at hand.  It may work for file storage or search engines, but structured data storage systems (databases) represent a different problem. What will likely ride to the rescue is a new approach to software database tech called Swarm Database Technology.” 

Layden’s company has leveraged Swarm Database theory into a lightning fast database that uses an unstructured format. Called Ancelus, it’s been independently clocked at producing more than one billion transactions per minute in one of the toughest database environments known to the industry: a three table join. The Ancelus database, abandoning conventional structured theory, thus produces unbelievable speed, the elimination of downtime and extreme reliability.

Want to know more? Check out Layden’s free Webinar on Swarm Database Theory and Ancelus on Friday September 7 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.  Log in here:  http://www.telspanvenue.com/PIID=EB51DD84824E

Or, if you missed it, contact John for more information.

 

Beyond label-making: building a path to true innovation

The following column is from R.J. Reynolds, president/CEO of Mek client Radius Indiana. It appeared in the OP-ED section of the Indianapolis Star on August 28.

Faced with economic uncertainty, budget constraints and a set of new fiscal parameters sometimes called “The New Normal,” many executives and leaders have called on companies and regions to embrace innovation. Innovation, of course, represents a disruptive course of action, where new elements replace old ones.

The term, innovation, rightly portrays a forward-looking vision, which unfortunately leads some to simply adopt the label of “innovation” while maintaining operations that are otherwise quite ordinary. In fact, given that the term “innovation” is definitely on a major upswing in usage, earlier this year The Wall Street Journal nominated “innovation” to be officially recognized as the most overused phrase of 2o12.

So without indulging in label hyperbole, how can Indiana—particularly regions in southern Indiana—begin to embrace true innovation and ultimately build a new culture of innovation that leads to higher productivity, technology advancement and a boost in per capita income?

Real innovation obviously begins with a willingness to change or embrace change. That means getting out of one’s comfort zone a bit. Change can produce new conflict, which if kept to a manageable level, is not a bad thing.

What’s next? Consider the quality of education in our workforce and resources available to institute and embrace change. Hoosiers can have great ideas, but to commercialize those ideas and bring them into the marketplace, they need a support structure in the form of mentoring, guidance and funding.

Once these resources were in short supply. Today, the Indiana Small Business Development Center (SBDC) has offices across the state.  Both start-ups and existing small businesses can tap into SBDC resources to quickly advance their little enterprise.   Where once outside funding was virtually non-existent except through friends and family, today several angel investors within a number of different angel networks can provide critical seed or advanced capital to build a company.

Many great ideas are killed by fear of failure.  Entrepreneurs and those embracing true innovation must be fearless and willing to take intelligent risks.  The success rate for true innovation in products is often low – one source noted how a new product often faces odds of 100 to 1 to become successful. But failure, if it is harnessed as a learning opportunity, leads to success as evidenced by such legends as Thomas Edison. Edison failed thousands of times in producing the first light bulb, phonograph, commercial electricity and many other products and services. If he had simply given up the first time he experienced a setback or failure, our quality of life would likely be substantially different today.

Organizational innovation must be rewarded. If you’re in an existing company, consider how you can value and reward employees for embracing and producing innovation in your products or services.  In a company that has truly embraced and is developing a culture of innovation, not every outcome will be perfect or without trauma.

Tear down those silos – a culture of innovation is collaborative and team-building. When people learn how to pool together their intellectual, behavioral and experiential resources in a positive environment that promotes risk-taking, great things can happen.  

Building a true Culture of Innovation goes far beyond mere labeling. Valuing people, promoting risk-taking, embracing continuous improvement and partnership with change represent critical elements for achieving real innovation, whether in manufacturing, services or product development and delivery. Americans and Hoosiers already have a legacy of innovation in us—let’s work to reignite that capacity and advance our state.

Tech transfer: $2 billion NSWC Crane facility partners with University of So. Indiana

From the University of Southern Indiana press room:

The University of Southern Indiana is piloting a Technology Commercialization Academy (TCA) this summer. For five weeks, six engineering students and six business students from USI are working full time to develop ideas and business strategies around commercialization of several Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division (NSWC Crane) patents. The Academy began on May 1 and will wrap up in early June.

The academy was made possible through a Lilly Endowment Sustaining Grant secured by Dr. Mohammed Khayum, dean of the College of Business, and Dr. Scott Gordon, dean of the Pott College of Science, Engineering, and Education.

“This is an extremely important project for us to gain insights into and increase the pace of technology transfer between Crane, USI, and others in southwestern Indiana,” said Dr. Khayum. “It’s an illustration of our commitment to engage the students in our business and engineering programs in meaningful ways for their personal and professional development.”

Throughout the process, students are utilizing USI resources to develop a manufacturing plan and produce prototypes of selected technologies. They also have completed preliminary market research and feasibility analysis.

“It’s uncommon for undergraduate students in business and engineering to be submersed in such a real-world, multi-faceted, and potentially high-economic impact area as commercialization of intellectual property,” said Dr. Gordon. “The identification of technology, evaluation of potential markets, and development of business plans helps capture our goal of developing synergy between those with business and those with engineering backgrounds.”

Only 12 of more than 36 applicants for the Academy were accepted. “These are some of our top business and engineering students,” said Andrew Moad, USI Crane partnership manager. “This Academy will help cultivate high-tech commercialization in southwest Indiana and will provide us an opportunity to home grow our own talent and build the intellectual capacity of the region.”

The process and technology

The 12 TCA participants were formed into three teams of four, and include two business and two engineering students.

Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville (GAGE), which came up with the Academy idea in their Tech Transfer Committee, helped to design and kick off the project, and provided business expertise for participants. GAGE facilitated an early session, where teams competed to create the Academy’s logo design. “The focus wasn’t on design as much as it was on making a great pitch,” said Moad.

“I like the mix of engineering and business students,” said Matt Rust, a junior marketing major at USI. “It’s good to get others’ perspectives. They might come up with solutions to a problem that wouldn’t even cross my mind.”

Rust normally spends his summers lifeguarding at a local pool, but this year, the TCA project has taken precedence. Part of the grant funding is being used to provide the opportunity for students to spend their summer working on the projects. “It’s grown into a lot more than I expected,” added Rust. “The real-world application is incredible. What we’re doing here can be applied to what we’ll be doing when we graduate.”

Students were asked to pitch commercialization ideas related to three technologies from NSWC Crane, including a rotary electrical contact ring, a Smart Skin technology, and a milestone and schedule management software program called STMTRC. Students came up with more than 100 ideas, pitched 36, and finally narrowed them down to six finalists. Each team of four students worked on two of the six applications.

Participants meet for two hours each day with faculty, and spend another six hours each day working on their projects and working with USI and community resources.

“This is something completely different and exceptional,” said senior engineering major Katie Shaw. “As an engineer, I can bring my background and skills to a marketing aspect. It’s been exciting to be doing something meaningful and unique over the summer.”

TCA participants chose five projects based on the Smart Skin technology and one using the management software program. In the end, two Smart Skin applications including smart targets and pressure and temperature sensitive hospital beds, and the software program were selected for final presentations.

Shaw’s group, which is working on the hospital beds, was able to meet in person with staff and administrators at Deaconess Hospital, including its president, Linda White. Their project could potentially improve technology and provide a cost savings to the local hospital. Shaw is excited to be pitching her team’s idea to a client for a real-world application, and the Academy has prepared her for that role. “Coming from an engineering background, it’s been important to learn marketing strategies,” she said. “It’s not only about marketing the technology; it’s about being able to sell yourself in front of other people.”

For another team, the Web-based management software is being designed around applications that could be used by universities to help with coordination of registration, advising, calendars, and other university-related needs. “This is an application that could be utilized at USI,” said Moad. “The students have identified some real needs for a program like this and, in the long run, it could even help improve our graduation rates.”

Teams traveled to Crane early in the process to learn about the technology they would be using and met the inventors. A follow up visit to Crane is planned for June 5, at which teams will present their ideas to officials there.

Goals and outcomes

“How do we bring an entrepreneurial mindset to corporate thinking about innovation?” asked Bryan Bourdeau, instructor in business. “We have to build expertise and capacity in the region to commercialize technologies. We can do this by creating an experiential learning environment that gives participants a process, the tools they need, and helps them better understand the resources available to them.”

Providing experience pursuing entrepreneurial ambitions is one outcome the Academy looks to achieve. It provides participants with a look at how to form and market a startup company.

Crane also stands to benefit from the partnership—building its reputation in the region and becoming recognized as an important technological resource. Commercialized technology also becomes a resource for Crane, which can purchase it for its own needs.

“We hope this leads to opportunities to go into internships in the fall of 2012, either at the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville (GAGE) or at regional technology-based companies who bring these students on board to do technology commercialization related work,” said Boudeau. “Other possible outcomes include a start-up based these technologies or a regional company seeing an opportunity to pursue commercialization of an idea coming out of this Academy.”

ExactTarget: farewell to the hometown firms?

New Agency of Record announcement from PRWeek:

ExactTarget hires Finn Partners as global AOR

June 06, 2012

CHICAGO: ExactTarget, an email and interactive marketing software provider that recently went public, has hired Finn Partners as its global AOR.

The agency will handle PR programs in the US, Europe, Australia, and Latin America. Finn Partners' Chicago office will manage the account, with support from its New York team.

Dan Pooley, senior partner and head of the firm's Chicago office, and managing partner Alicia Young will lead the account. A five-employee core team will work on the ExactTarget business, ...

Indiana's New $6 billion Commercial Defense Corridor

As construction crews fashion bridges and pour concrete, the long-awaited I-69 begins to take shape in southwestern Indiana, representing a whole new economic opportunity for Indiana’s defense and energy sector. Originally isolated in its early days as a Tier I ammunition depot during World War II, the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) – together with the WestGate @ Crane Technology Park and other military technology assets – will soon possess all-new logistical access through I-69 with other key commercial defense assets in the state.

Soon to stretch essentially from Evansville to Angola in northeast Indiana, I-69 will link together billion-dollar assets completely across the state, effectively becoming a commercial defense and energy corridor for Indiana. Until a few years ago, Indiana’s defense- and energy-related companies in southern Indiana represented a relative unknown. Here’s a snapshot of the major assets located on this emerging commercial defense corridor.

As the state’s commercial defense activities more than tripled over the past decade, AmeriQual in Evansville became the nation’s largest provider of Meals Ready to Eat (MREs – formerly known as k-rations) for the U.S. military. Continuing a 20-year transformation, NSWC Crane (located on the 100 square miles of the Naval Support Activity facility near Crane, Indiana) today represents a major military laboratory providing technology and support services for all branches of the U.S. military and Homeland Security, as well as a major technology resource for the energy storage and electric vehicle industry.

The WestGate @ Crane Technology Park, certified by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) about five years ago, today is home to more than 10 major commercial defense contractors serving NSWC Crane and the 5,000 defense-related employees in the region. The park is located next to both NSWC Crane and I-69, the latter of which will provide highly strategic for future growth. Nearby are the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center and Camp Atterbury, Indiana’s premier training and mobilization center. All of these assets and others are being positioned for major economic growth by the Radius Indiana regional partnership, located in Bedford, Indiana, which is also home to the EastGate industrial park

About 20 miles to north of NSWC Crane and the WestGate is the main Bloomington campus of Indiana University, home to the IU School of Informatics and faculty members engaged in advanced defense work. Numerous defense companies serving NSWC Crane and other national defense contracts are also located in Bloomington.

Continuing up I-69 and S.R. 37 to Indianapolis, several major commercial defense companies employ thousands of Hoosiers in high-impact, high-wage jobs. These include Raytheon, Rolls Royce, Allison Transmission and other companies directly working in defense cluster companies. North of Indianapolis on I-69 lies the cities of Fishers and Anderson, both home to defense-related technology companies presently doing work for the Pentagon communication systems and in advanced battery and energy storage technology.

Continuing above Anderson is tiny Taylor University in Upland, where students and faculty work on NASA contracts.

New I-69 off ramp takes place just outside WestGate @ Crane Technology Park

The 10 counties served by the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership represent another major hotbed of commercial defense activities. About 4,000 defense-related employees work at another division of Raytheon in Fort Wayne, as well as ITT, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and other defense companies. A major flying wing of the Indiana Air National Guard is located in Fort Wayne, and the city is also home to the Indiana University-Purdue University campus at Fort Wayne (IPFW). IPFW houses two centers of excellence critically related to the defense and energy industries: wireless and systems engineering. Iotron's new $15-million electron-beam facility is just a few miles away in Columbia City, next to other commercial defense operations.

Numerous other major assets exist in Indiana, including defense- and energy related companies and research activities at Purdue in West Lafayette, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute (which has conducted graduate engineering programs at NSWC Crane for several years) and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend (which is also home to AM General, where the Humvee and HUMMER military transport vehicles are manufactured).

Given that IEDC is now aggressively marketing Indiana’s defense assets and the Indiana General Assembly has a formal Crane Caucus led by Rep. Mark Messmer to help support growth, Indiana could again double or even triple its current defense and energy industry activities over the coming decade.  The I-69 defense and energy corridor is becoming real, as will thousands of new jobs as new companies join in Indiana’s new commercial defense opportunities.

Do you feel a draft? Mitch Daniels for Prez?

The Christian Science Monitor (see link below) openly opined today that Mitch Daniels' superb State of the Union rebuttal (gotta love the bit about the light bulb) was possibly nothing but a litmus test for a real run (aka read "draft").

In reality, is history repeating itself or a forgotten page right out of L. Keith Bulen's election playbook? This seems very close to the 2003 quasi-strategy in the first part of the Bush the Second's administration, when Daniels publicly refused to return to Indiana (then holding the OMB director post) to run for Governor.

After a seemingly independent groundswell of prominent calls, letters and pledges, Daniels "reluctantly" returned to Hoosierland and captured the gubernatorial brass ring. Will we see a repeat on the federal level in 2012? It IS a great speech! http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0125/Mitch-Daniels-State-of-the-Union-rebuttal-makes-GOP-wonder-What-if/(page)/2

Is Mitch Running for Veep or What?

The response to the opposition President's State of the Union Address is typically reserved for an up and comer in the opposition party. The Republican Congressional leadership announced Jan. 19 that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels -- who earlier withdrew from any possible presidential candidacy -- will deliver the Republican's response to President Obama.

The questions are: 1) Is Mitch now running for the Republican Vice Presidential Slot; or 2) Is Mitch running for either Secretary of the Treasury or Secretary of Commerce (in a newly revamped Commerce Department)?

Read the press release below from the Congressional Republications and decide for yourself:

Washington -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced today that Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN) will deliver the Republican Address to the Nation following the President’s State of the Union address on January 24, 2012.

Governor Daniels, now in his eighth and final year as Indiana’s chief executive, has compiled a solid record of effective government and fiscal responsibility, making him well-suited to outline Republicans’ better solutions to the challenges Americans are facing in this struggling economy.

In his 2012 State of the State Address, Gov. Daniels touted a number of his administration’s accomplishments:

• Indiana has a balanced budget and now enjoys the first AAA credit rating in its history.
• According to CEO Magazine’s rankings of the best states to do business, “Indiana jumped to sixth place from 16th in 2010, giving Hoosiers the third-biggest advance in the rankings in a single year.”
• The magazine notes that “while at least 35 states raised taxes during the recession, Indiana cut them.”Indiana has the fewest state employees per capita in the country.
• In a national survey, 77 percent of Hoosiers described their state government as “efficient,” the second-highest rating in the nation.

“Mitch Daniels is a fierce advocate for smaller, less costly, and more accountable government, and has the record to prove it,” Speaker Boehner said. “As governor, he has turned deficits into surplus, reformed government from top to bottom, and created a better environment for private-sector job creation.

"For making tough choices and keeping his promises, Mitch Daniels is the right choice at the right time to deliver the Republican response to President Obama’s address.”

“As Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels helped improve his state’s economy by fostering an environment to create jobs. An eloquent spokesman for limited government, Gov. Daniels knows that President Obama’s three-year experiment in big government has made our economy worse and our future more uncertain, and he knows that Americans want a government that’s simpler, streamlined and secure,” said Leader McConnell. “He is a forceful advocate of pro-growth policies like fundamental tax reform, regulatory reform and energy security.

And he is the right choice to explain the challenges we face and to outline a hopeful, common-sense vision for moving America forward by growing the economy, not the national debt.”

“It’s an honor to be asked. I hope to do the assignment justice,” said Governor Daniels. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. was elected as the 49th Governor of the State of Indiana in 2004, in his first bid for any elected office. He was re-elected in 2008 to a second and final term, receiving more votes than any candidate for any public office in the state’s history.

Daniels earned a bachelor's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1971 and his law degree from Georgetown University in 1979. More information on Governor Daniels can be found at the following link: http://www.in.gov/gov/2635.htm.