Original article published on Microsoft for Work on March 17, 2014. Leaders in every industry must pay attention to disruptions. Professor Michio Kaku, the co-founder of string field theory and one of America’s foremost physicists, predicts disruptions in education, healthcare, psychology, criminal justice, manufacturing, and entertainment. To ensure your business …more
It’s always thought-provoking to see what happens when content catches on and becomes viral. What makes an idea or product so interesting or captivating that people want to share it? Or taking it a step further, so compelling that people want to create their own versions of the same content …more
Originally published on Microsoft for Work on March 18, 2014. In his new book, Absolute Value, Stanford Professor Itamar Simonson sets up the question: what does it mean when the traditional notions of marketing don’t stand up in 21st century? In doing so, he reveals what really influences customers today …more
On this episode of The Downshift, they take a look back at one of the most interesting chapters in automotive history: the birth and death of the DeLorean Motor Company. When John DeLorean left GM to start his own line of eponymous cars no one had any idea the real-life …more
My friend and former business partner (dotedu/OpenCola), Cory Doctorow has an audiobook in the latest Humble Ebook Bundle, which includes a collection of great name-your-price e-books, including Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, Steve Gould’s Jumper, and Holly Black’s Tithe. Also included in the bundle is an exclusive audiobook of Cory’s novel Homeland, read …more
Microsoft Research originally published this article on March 18, 2014: Link Leslie Lamport first began dabbling in computers while he was still in high school. Nothing too unusual about that—until you consider that this was in the mid-1950s. Lamport was attending the Bronx High School of Science in New York, and …more
I’m excited to be able to experience the Magic of TED at the TED2014 Executive Briefing tomorrow in Vancouver, Canada. WHEN: Thursday, March 20th, 2014 LOCATION: The Vancouver Convention Centre (VCC), 1055 Canada Pl, Vancouver I’d love to connect, so if you’re attending TED2014 in Vancouver tomorrow and would like …more
Referral Candy recently published a story on their blog entitled, “How Referrals Built the Dropbox Empire” detailing the incredible results Dropbox has experienced through the awesome power of referrals. This is a must read for marketers. In its latest round of fundraising, Dropbox raised between $250 to $400 million dollars, which put the …more
From BoingBoing – Mary Blair is my favorite artist of all time, in a gorgeous retrospective at the amazing The Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio in SF: San Francisco’s Walt Disney Family Museum is running an exhibition on the art of Mary Blair, one of the all-time greats …more
I had a GREAT time on Saturday in the Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Seattle. An army of Irish-made DeLoreans rolled along the parade route with their doors open as part of the Pacific Northwest DeLorean Club float. Here’s a photo from the Seattle Times — I’m second from the front on …more
Here we are after our presentation at the SharePoint Conference 2014 in Las Vegas last week. It was a great event for …more
We had fun at the SharePoint Conference 2014 in Las Vegas last week, talking to customers and partners who are doing some …more
As a car fanatic, I love this story and the sophistication of what it takes to be a winning team. This story …more
An interesting story was published today on the Harvard Business Review Blog, called The Irresistible Power of Storytelling as a Strategic Business …more
Today, we are seeing four megatrends in the industry: Mobility, Cloud, Social, and Big Data. They are driving what we are doing at …more
It’s almost time for our session to begin at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. Please join us for what we think …more
Originally published on MSFT for Work on February 28, 2014.
Pop quiz: what does the 2014 Seahawks-49ers playoff game have in common with the 2014 Sochi Olympics? Answer: both events featured websites powered by Windows Azure. For the Seahawks game, the Windows Azure team stepped in to help the small-scale Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) run their Fan-O-Meter, a website that measures the 12th Man’s “Beast Quakes.” In Sochi, Windows Azure literally runs every piece of NBC Sports’ coverage. Together, they show how Windows Azure scales and handles jobs from a small nonprofit organization’s fun project to one of the largest sporting events in the world.
Shaking the ground
Microsoft is proud of our home team, the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. One of the biggest moments of the season actually came before the big game. At the January 12 playoff game against the Saints, seismologists at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network’s Fan-O-Meter attempted to measure the legendary 12th Man’s “Beast Quakes” after Marshawn Lynch scored. The Fan-O-Meter is accessible to anyone online, and it turned out to be far more popular than the PNSN anticipated. The team’s lone server couldn’t handle the traffic and crashed, and they almost threw in the towel—until the Windows Azure team stepped in to offer an open source solution.
Working long hours through the next week, the team got the measurement site back up and running in time for the January 19 game against the 49ers. 40,000 fans eventually tuned in—a relatively small number, but enormous for the PNSN’s normal traffic load. When the 12th Man made history by creating a seismic spike (a.k.a an earthquake), the Windows Azure server automatically scaled and handled the traffic with ease. The total cost for scaling the server for the extra traffic: $6.
If you’re looking for a way to prepare for an unexpected (or expected!) spike in traffic, Windows Azure has you covered.
Going for the gold
When it comes to enterprise-level scaling, it doesn’t get much bigger than NBC’s coverage of the 2014 Sochi Olympics. With more than 1,000 hours of 98 events broadcast to millions of customers worldwide, NBC decided that partnering with Microsoft and Windows Azure was the gold-medal solution.
Viewers can access live and on-demand content by using the free NBC Sports Live Extra app, available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Windows RT devices—or access coverage live from the web at NBCOlympics.com. Windows Azure Media Services powers all of these streams, regardless of format and platform.
The Windows Azure cloud platform brings the true power of cloud services beyond just renting IT capacity. NBC’s coverage is proof positive that stability, security, and scalability are hallmarks of using Windows Azure as a media solution.
Your business probably won’t need to stream something as large as the Olympics—but Windows Azure can handle it if you do! If you’re looking for media streaming for a live event, your next commercial, or any other video service you can think of, Windows Azure media services can help.
Your cloud, your way
Whether you’re a small group of seismologists recording a single moment at a single sports event, or an enterprise-level media company handling one of the largest sporting events in history, Windows Azure scales to your needs and provides the infrastructure it takes to get it done. Regardless of your size and requirements, a cloud solution from Windows Azure is the way to move beyond renting storage space and into a full cloud-based infrastructure solution. The time to begin exploring cloud solutions is now.
Originally published on MSFT for Work on February 28, 2014. Pop quiz: what does the 2014 Seahawks-49ers playoff game have in common …more
Got Imagination?
At Imagine Cup, we believe in the power of students to change the world. And we don’t have to look very far for a great example: Bill Gates was the university student, along with his friend from high school, Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft. They know what it means to dream big and work hard.
Every year, we see amazing teams of Imagine Cup students rise from countries all over the world. They bring us their dreams, their skills, and their passion. They show us what they can do. And when that happens we can see the future right there, in the faces of those leaders of tomorrow. For Imagine Cup 2014, we wanted to find a way to connect some of these future leaders with the history that inspires us.
And so I’m very pleased to announce that one Imagine Cup World Finalist team will be chosen for a private meeting with Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That team of students will get the chance to share their dreams and their excitement for a brighter future in person with this entrepreneur, innovator, and humanitarian.
We’re very grateful to share this opportunity with the students of Imagine Cup. And if it sounds like something you’ve always dreamed of, there’s one way you can make it so: Make it all the way to the Imagine Cup World Finals in Seattle this July, 2014, and your team could be the one chosen to meet Bill Gates. Learn more.
Got Imagination? At Imagine Cup, we believe in the power of students to change the world. And we don’t have to look …more
Got Content? The forecast for content marketing in 2014 includes higher quality of content, multiscreen marketing, and bigger budgets, according to the …more
I’m excited to be presenting at the SharePoint 2014 Conference in Las Vegas this week. In my session, titled: Working Smarter: Automating …more
