Information Week

Optimizing Data Center Efficiency: Harnessing Prescriptive and Predictive Power Management for Sustainable IT Infrastructure source

“Virtual Twins, Real Impact: How Integrated Simulation is Driving the Next Generation of Products“ Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 1:00pm EDT In today’s connected world, more and more products require both mechanical and electromagnetic design.  Increased product complexity, higher performance demands, and the integration of these simulation domains are making the design cycle more involved.  Meanwhile, the market is demanding faster product launches and lower costs. Join us as we explore some of the design challenges companies are facing today, and how simulation is playing a key role in overcoming them.  We will discuss thermal analysis, structural analysis, electromagnetic analysis – and how connected workflows can link these different domains to make the analysis process faster and more accurate. Offered Free by: Dassault See All Resources from: Dassault source

COMMENTARY The role of the CPO — chief privacy officer — is at a crossroads. A rapidly growing number of data breaches, continually evolving regulations, and the increasing complexity of digital ecosystems have made a robust, privacy-first approach to managing data more critical for businesses than ever before. The role of a CPO was once clear-cut: Ensure compliance with privacy laws, manage data collection practices, and mitigate data risks. Now, CPOs are balancing more responsibilities than ever. Privacy has an impact on every realm of the business. So, is a CPO still a CPO, or is the role something greater? And, is it a role that just one person can handle?   The Expanding Scope of the CPO In a recent episode of my podcast, “The Privacy Insider,” Google’s outgoing chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, remarked that the data privacy role has expanded so much, it requires a jack of all trades. In many organizations, the CPO might manage privacy, but also aspects of security, data ethics, and even AI governance. Privacy does play a role in all these areas. But can a CPO — or chief information security officer (CISO), or chief data officer (CDO), or chief AI officer — wear all these hats and have them fit?  Whatever mix of letters that follows the C, many companies are striving for the same goal. They want a member of the C-suite whose mandate encompasses a broader responsibility: Be the steward of data governance, protection, compliance, and ethical use. That someone with any of the above backgrounds could be overseeing all of the above responsibilities shows how intertwined the technologies, data, and risks have become. Maybe that one job should be a more integrated team effort.   Guarding the Wall Together  For example, think about a data breach. Responsibility for preventing a data breach typically falls on the CISO. If a hacker pierces a company’s systems, that’s a security failure. But the reality of a rapidly changing threat landscape is that once you secure against one threat, another one is right behind it. For many companies, data breaches aren’t an “if,” but a “when.” How are you protecting what’s behind the wall? Good data privacy practices are good security. Are you identifying, safeguarding, and minimizing your most sensitive data? CISOs work hard on fortifying the wall, but if someone breaks through and there’s nothing to steal, you’ve contained the immediate damage, and also the reputational and regulatory damage that can follow. Protecting an organization on all sides calls for a tightly integrated strategy.   And Then There’s AI  The rise of AI presents some unique challenges: What are the ethical implications of AI? Can you trust it? What’s the recourse if sensitive data winds up in an AI model? Many companies turn to the CPO for guidance on the ethical use of these technologies, particularly around issues of consent, bias, and transparency. But AI governance is typically the domain of the CISO or the CDO, not the CPO. For now, no one person should own AI, because at this point in time, AI touches everything. Everyone shares the responsibility for using it wisely.  However, CPOs can play an important role in charting a path for AI, aside from ensuring companies use it in a privacy-forward way. The ethics of using sensitive data — and as we are seeing with the European Union AI Act, the consequences of misusing it — are similar whether the offender is human or machine. Clear insight on handling and protecting sensitive data and experience with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) readiness can help privacy pros guide the business in managing AI’s complexities.  The CPO as Partner Managing risk in a modern organization is the ultimate balancing act. Sometimes it’s all hands on deck to shore up cybersecurity, sometimes it’s sensitive data protection, sometimes it’s AI. Privacy, security, governance, and the rest are all critical to maintain the balance, no matter what the challenge is. There may be a CPO, there may not be a CPO. Privacy management might be centralized or distributed across the business. But that doesn’t change the importance of data privacy management in helping to shore up system security, define AI governance, build trust, and mitigate risk. The best role a CPO can play is in demonstrating the value of a strong privacy program to make the whole business stronger.  source

Businesses looking to increase their sales now have a powerful new tool at their disposal — AI.  AI revolutionizes sales by enhancing traditional selling methods and introducing new capabilities, says Bob Seaton, CTO advisor and solutions architect at technology consulting firm BUILT. “It builds upon established data science techniques, offering advanced customer segmentation, rapid industry insights, and streamlined training processes,” he explains in an online interview. “This approach allows companies to gain crucial information about their customers at unprecedented speeds, fostering more meaningful relationships and providing a competitive edge.”  AI’s core powers include creating natural content, handling Q&As, and automating action-based tasks, says Jared Coyle, chief AI officer with business applications provider SAP North America, in an email interview. “These capabilities open a wide range of opportunities for sales teams by simplifying various stages of the sales process.”  Meanwhile, generative AI (GenAI) is opening new frontiers in sales communication. “This technology enables micro-level customization of messaging, acting as a sophisticated personal assistant to clarify and tailor communications for specific audiences,” Seaton says. “AI not only refines existing sales strategies, but also introduces powerful new tools for personalization and efficiency, ultimately leading to more impactful customer interactions and improved sales outcomes.”  Related:Empowering Sales Leaders to Drive Success with AI In the early stages of selling, when greater personalization is required, AI can equip sales teams with valuable insights for more enhanced interactions, Coyle says. “By providing capabilities like intelligent customer profiles, sales teams can better understand customer purchasing patterns and preferences, as well as gain insight into where a customer is on their journey.”  “As sales teams move beyond the early stages of selling and into active customer interaction, AI can aid in contract management, content preparation, and the generation of custom visual designs tailored to specific target audiences,” Coyle notes. “Predictive analytics, powered by AI, can better forecast customer satisfaction and increase the likelihood of contract signings by enabling better resource allocation and insights.”  Data Matters  AI’s sales effectiveness hinges on its ability to harness vast amounts of data. “AI’s power lies in its speed and capacity to identify trends at an unprecedented scale,” Seaton says. It allows business leaders to recognize patterns hidden in their data, ask more insightful questions, and accelerate growth with targeted actions. AI’s data processing capabilities can also dramatically enhance product development, enabling rapid prototyping and testing. Such efficiency can compress months of testing into days, leading to faster solution creation and significant cost savings. “The key to AI’s utility isn’t just in having abundant data, but in knowing how to leverage it effectively to drive real insights and tangible business outcomes.”  Related:SAP’s Sophia Mendelsohn on Using AI to Scale Sustainability Opportunity and Risks  Businesses that embrace AI will replace companies that don’t, claims Pranav Gupta, a senior data scientist at home improvement retailer Lowe’s. In an email interview, he recommends getting started with AI as soon as possible. “The first step is to answer the question of what is the biggest opportunity area that could lead to a better customer experience or convince customers to buy your product.”  Sales teams that fall behind in AI use risk missing out on valuable data insights, leading to lost sales opportunities and revenue growth, Coyle says. Customer experience will also suffer, due to slower response times and less personalized services, impacting satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, without AI’s predictive analytics, businesses may struggle with inaccurate forecasts, leading to poor decision-making and resource misallocation, he warns.  Related:How Intelligent Applications Can Boost Sales Not Just Another Tool  AI is not just another tool; it’s a universal accelerator rapidly that redefines every aspect of work, Seaton says. “By leveraging AI to quickly process vast amounts of data and generate insights, companies can respond to customer needs with unprecedented speed and precision,” he explains. “This acceleration allows businesses to present proposals before competitors, giving customers the opportunity to say ‘Yes’ earlier in the sales cycle.”  AI’s transformative power extends beyond enhancing existing processes, Seaton says. “Those who embrace AI as an accelerator will gain a significant competitive edge, while those who don’t risk falling behind,” he warns. “It’s clear that failing to adopt AI technology, especially in sales, means losing out on opportunities and efficiency gains that many competitors already leverage.”  An AI sales tool’s effectiveness can be evaluated by measuring increases in revenue and net promoter score, reduction in customer complaints, and related metrics that typically constitute key performance indicators, Gupta says. He suggests estimating such impacts early, even before an AI-based tool has been deployed. “For example, if you know the accuracy of a model recommending products to customers is 90%, you can make assumptions about the customer funnel and calculate company KPI from the value of the model accuracy.”  To obtain a clearer understanding of a sales tool’s overall effectiveness, Coyle advises conducting A/B tests of multiple AI initiatives to find the one that generates higher conversions and better customer engagements.  Faster Growth  Experts say that AI is the new electricity, Gupta observes. “Soon it will be unimaginable to have a product without some component of AI, just like it’s unimaginable to spend a single day at the office without a computer.”  source

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting is hitting the mainstream, as two big tech vendors this week have announced efforts to help enterprise organizations manage their efforts with regard to this major trend. ServiceNow has announced a new integrated ESG solution, powered by its Now digital workflow platform. The technology is designed to help companies work on strategies from enhancing diversity and inclusion to reducing carbon emissions to enabling business resilience, across the enterprise. ServiceNow has also announced the expansion of its alliance relationship with KPMG to deliver ESG-focused solutions and services. Separately, Google Cloud this week launched Carbon Footprint, a new product that gives customers a view of the gross carbon emissions associated with their Google Cloud Platform usage. The announcements come at a time when enterprises are working to improve their ESG initiatives and reporting. Investors, employees, and customers are looking at these efforts to help differentiate who they want to invest in, work for, and buy from in today’s market. Governments are also considering the creation of laws and regulations around ESG reporting and standards for public and private companies. For instance, the US House of Representatives passed an ESG reporting bill over the summer that would apply to public companies. Separately, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has indicated that ESG disclosure regulation will be a central focus of the new SEC Chair. Gartner reported that organizations are ranking regulatory risk related to ESG disclosures higher — it reached the second position on Gartner’s rankings in its Emerging Risks Monitor Report based on a survey of 153 senior executives in the second quarter of 2021. “The survey data partly reflects a global inflection point as ESG disclosures move from voluntary to required,” said Matt Shinkman, VP with the Gartner Risk and Audit Practice. It’s in this environment that Google and ServiceNow made their recent announcements, designed to help organizations with their reporting. “Sustainability is top of mind for every CEO and board,” Jen Bennett, Google’s lead for data and technology strategy for sustainability in the office of the CTO, told members of the media during a conference call. Carbon Footprint is available now to every Google Cloud Platform user for free in the Cloud Console, according to a blog post by Google’s Chris Talbott and Joel Conkling. The tool helps organizations measure, track, and report on the gross carbon emissions associated with the electricity of their cloud usage. “With growing requirements for Environmental Social and Governance reporting, companies are looking for was to show their employees, boards, and customers their progress against climate targets,” Talbott and Conkling wrote in the post. “Using Carbon Footprint, you have access to the gross energy related emissions data you need for internal carbon inventories and external carbon disclosures with one click.” Google said the tool was built in collaboration with customers including Atos, Etsy, L’Oreal, Salesforce, Thoughtworks, and Twitter. The calculation methodology is published to provide transparency to auditors and reporting teams. ServiceNow said its new ESG solution “serves as an operational control tower to help convert companies’ ESG goals into reality by providing visibility and transparency across their ESG programs and initiatives and helping them strategize, manage, govern, and report on these efforts on a single platform.” Components of the ServiceNow solution include ESG management and reporting, project and portfolio management, and integrated risk management tools. “In order for ESG initiatives to be effective, companies must have a complete view of their ESG efforts and performance to know how they are tracking towards their goals,” said Kim Knickle, research director at research and advisory firm Verdantix. “We expect ServiceNow’s new ESG solution will leverage the company’s existing platform to better enable this visibility.” What to Read Next: How CIOs Can Advance Company Sustainability Goals Should Sustainability Be an IT Priority? How to Build a Strong and Effective Data Retention Policy Corporate Diversity Efforts Get Real source

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In recent years, facial recognition technology has gone through cycles of falling in and out of favor, adding to complex questions about artificial intelligence and privacy. Neither facial recognition nor AI is new, but the ways they are applied opens up business potential as well as liability. An interview for an upcoming InformationWeek series on generative AI shed additional light on the intersection of these technologies and why the public may need proactive deterrents for both. Ben Y. Zhao, professor of computer science at the University of Chicago, led a team that worked on a tool called Fawkes, which is meant to disrupt unknown third parties from creating facial recognition profiles to track individuals by using images found on social media. The conversation with Zhao on Fawkes, and his later work on Nightshade, will appear next week on InformationWeek. The name of the Fawkes tool was derived from Guy Fawkes, whose likeness was adopted in the form of a mask as a symbol by hacktivist group Anonymous and others who seek to maintain anonymity while engaging in various forms of protest. The Fawkes tool was developed around the time Clearview.ai got sued for scraping data from social media to flesh out its facial recognition database and tools, which were sold to law enforcement. Related:FTC Prescribes Ban on Rite Aid’s AI Facial Recognition Use Not long after that lawsuit, Clearview.ai was back in headlines, this time offering its services to Ukraine for the potential use of facial recognition to spot Russian agents. This exemplifies some of the back and forth associated with facial recognition. Meta bowed out of facial recognition for tagging photos on Facebook. The Federal Trade Commission banned Rite Aid from using facial recognition for five years after it was discovered the pharmacy chain’s use of biometric technology unjustly target and tagged minorities as potential shoplifters. And those are just some recent steps in this dance between innovating with AI and facial recognition and addressing the issues they raise. Over the past five years there have been discussions of facial recognitions risks, the liability concerns associated with AI, as well as potential uses of facial recognition that do not violate civil rights while responsibly respecting individuals. This particular dilemma between privacy, security, and opportunity dates back even further. The rush of interest in biometrics that arose after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — just a few years shy of a quarter century ago — never completely went away. The effort to identify potential attackers became paramount, a natural reaction steeped in a desire to restore a sense of safety. Related:Clearview AI Offers Face Recognition AI to Ukraine This led to a boom of business for companies that promised to sift through digital images to catch bad actors. This also opened the door for potential authoritarian abuses. Regardless, businesses continue to look for ways to make facial recognition part of the identification equation. But is that viable in a world where the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten continue to gain momentum and strength? This episode of DOS Won’t Hunt explores the tension at that intersection of AI, security, facial recognition, and lessons that could still be learned from Guy Fawkes and other masks. Listen to the full podcast here. source

With NFL teams back on the field and fans returning to the stands, the team behind the scenes at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., is tightening up its data game by adopting a consolidated storage resource. Jim Mercurio, executive vice president and general manager at Levi’s Stadium, says they turned to hybrid cloud data storage company Qumulo to deliver upgrades and updates to data storage for security camera footage and other demands. “We needed to find a way to consolidate some of the storage that unbeknownst to me was really siloed at the time,” he says. “To be able to eliminate five racks of equipment and not have 54 verticals or silos that could be difficult to manage, allows you to expand your other kind of resources.” The stadium ingests upwards of 44 terabytes of data per day, he says, which includes video, video analytics, as well as safeguarding the team’s historical photography accumulated over the years. Prior to tapping Qumulo to consolidate storage, data captured at the stadium was a bit spread out. Mercurio says a goal when Levi’s Stadium, homefield of the San Francisco 49ers football team, opened in 2014 was to make the venue one of the first of its generation in terms of technology. “We really focused on futureproofing this stadium as best we can,” he says. Several years on, eventually there came a need to reassess how some of that technology was implemented. Furthermore, the old data storage resource was approaching end-of-life. That led to Qumulo being brought in, Mercurio says. “We said, ‘Hey, we’ve got 54 different kinds of verticals of storage here — can you help us with this?’” With the current NFL season underway, he is eyeing possibilities for next year as the country continues to reorient in light of the pandemic. The stadium might see 10 to 12 NFL games in 2022, Mercurio says, plus another four to five large-scale events such as concerts and soccer games. Special events hosted at the stadium, which can be smaller-scale meetings with 30 people to corporate holiday parties with 2,500 attendees, might number more than 100 to 200 in a year under more normal circumstances. “We have likened ourselves to a midsize convention center,” he says. Though the pandemic put a wrinkle in everyone’s operations, Mercurio says Levi’s Stadium is looking ahead to the resumption of catered and special events it would host. Activity at the stadium extends beyond the NFL games, with Levi’s Stadium serving as office space for operations such as security, public relations, broadcasting, and marketing. There may be more possibilities ahead for the data and information captured at the venue, Mercurio says. “The next phase I think I could see us moving into is game video footage for coaches and things of that nature.” The transition to consolidated data storage can help keep that data protected along with other business use cases. “Stadiums are no longer just used for Sundays at 1 o’clock,” he says. “These are buildings that are used constantly and not just for sports; for non-NFL events.” When creating a technology game plan for Levi’s Stadium, Mercurio says it was important to go beyond new innovations just for the sake of it. Finding tech resources to help solve problems became the focus, he says. For example, there was some prior debate about whether the stadium would use turnstiles to control entry. “We chose handheld devices as a result,” Mercurio says. That plan has since evolved. This year Levi’s Stadium instituted turnstile, self-service kiosks that can scan and can be one frictionless technology used by ticketholders. The buildup of data from an ever-growing stream of sources drove Levi’s Stadium to continue adapting its digital landscape. “That technology impacts your Wi-Fi needs, your storage needs, your communication needs, your infrastructure needs,” Mercurio says. “The draw on data storage for facial recognition is so massive.” With security measures such as magnetometers, facial recognition, and license plate readers becoming more intrinsic to running such venues, it heightens demand to consolidate data and for the IT team to have a substantial role in operations, he says. Data and analytics are more appreciated now from a business perspective, Mercurio says, for decision-making and better understanding demographics of who is in the stadium and tailor offerings to them to reduce wasteful costs and increase revenue. “It gives you opportunities to streamline things and the [food] menu items your customers actually want,” he says. “Data allows you to do that.” Mercurio says the transition to Qumulo is still underway and thus far has been rather seamless. The move offered flexibility, he says, while also addressing cybersecurity concerns. It also helped the ongoing collaborative efforts among stadium operations that include guest services, food and beverage, security, grounds crew, engineers, business and analytics, legal, and finance. “Whatever you can do to improve the guest experience and service, the 49ers and Levi’s Stadium are committed to doing that,” he says. Related Content: IBM Showcases Strategic Digital Changes at the 2021 US Open Formula One, NFL, and NHL Work on Their Hustle with AWS New Storage Trends Promise to Help Enterprises Handle a Data Avalanche source

“2024 InformationWeek US IT Salary Report: A Look Back at 2023 — Profits, Layoffs, and the Continued Rise of AI“ Brought to you by InformationWeek 2023 was full of economic contradictions. Record profits. Massive layoffs. It was also the year AI possibly saved (or possibly sacrificed) IT. Continued job uncertainty stemming from massive and sustained layoffs in IT during a loudly hailed booming economy is taking a toll. Despite being satisfied with their jobs overall, more than half of respondents in the latest InformationWeek IT Salary Survey rated their stress as a 6 or higher on a 10-point scale. Find out how you compare: Salary Parity Gender Pay Gap Non-Salary Benefits Stress Level Job Perks Raises & Bonuses Download now to continue reading and prepare for the year ahead! Offered Free by: InformationWeek See All Resources from: InformationWeek Thank you This download should complete shortly. If the resource doesn’t automatically download, please, click here. Thank you This download should complete shortly. If the resource doesn’t automatically download, please, click here. Thank you This download should complete shortly. If the resource doesn’t automatically download, please, click here. source