Feature on Alliance Data for Watson Wyatt's Strategy@Work publication
How did Alliance Data achieve more than 97% employee satisfaction with its new benefits call center?
By working with Watson Wyatt to implement a system that combined technology with old-fashioned excellent customer service.
Find out more in this case study from Strategy@Work, a Watson Wyatt publication.
Categories: Business · Case Study · Communications · Technology
Tagged: Alliance Data, Watson Wyatt
Bull sharks (a.k.a. Carcharhinus leucas). Photo by Andy Murch via Wikimedia Commons.
Never, ever shine a flashlight at a bull shark.
Find out why in this profile of Bill Hansen, certified scuba dive master and founder of Manta Technologies, a company that provides IBM System i training courses.
Categories: Journalism · Technology
Using less electricity is good for the bottom line and the planet (photo by Linda Kenney)
Companies looking to lower their IT energy costs can get relief with the help of more efficient mainframe computers.
IBM’s System z9 platform, for example, is 30-times more efficient than the first CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) system developed in the mid-1990s.
Get all the details on how more efficient mainframes can help companies save energy, reduce cooling costs and free up space in the datacenter in this feature story for IBM Systems Magazine.
Categories: Journalism · Technology
Tagged: cost savings, energy efficiency, IBM, mainframe
Kolz's inventions improve the computing experience (photo by John Watson)
In four years, a moderately active IBM inventor might participate in filing 6 to 8 patent applications.
From 2003 to 2007, IBM project leader Dan Kolz submitted more than 100 patent applications for IBM.
Kolz, who calls genetic algorithms “the neatest thing in the world,” says the invention process is actually getting easier as he gains knowledge and experience.
Read more about Kolz’s prodigious mind in a feature story from the November 2007 of IBM Systems magazine.
Categories: Business · Journalism · Profile · Technology
Tagged: IBM Systems, inventions, inventor, patent application
Snow puppy (photo by Kyle Kesselring)
“You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.”
- Robert Louis Stevenson
With his lofty view of canines, Stevenson might have enjoyed the proliferation of puppy photos and anecdotes on the Internet.
Find out about the top puppy websites and blogs in this story for Purina’s Beneful website.
Categories: Journalism · Technology
Tagged: blogs, dogs, puppies, Robert Louis Stevenson
Cartridge being ejected from a 12-gauge shotgun (photo by Nicole, a.k.a. Tigresblanco)
Find out how Blair Wyman survived a shotgun robbery as a Houston taxi driver and went on to become an award-winning software engineer at IBM.
Get the story on Wyman in this September 2007 profile for IBM Systems magazine.
Categories: Journalism · Profile · Technology
Tagged: IBM, software engineer, taxi driver
California's snow-covered Sierra Mountains (photo by Scott1956)
Southern California gets almost all its water from snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada, Sierra Madre and San Gabriel mountains.
If climate change causes higher temperatures and smaller snowpacks, could Los Angeles and San Diego’s water supply run dry?
Scientists at UCLA and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are joining forces to investigate the situation.
Find out more in this feature story for UCLA College Report magazine.
Categories: Academia · Environment · Journalism · Technology
Tagged: climate change, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, Los Angeles, mountains, San Diego, snow, Southern California, UCLA
Crash test dummies at the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, Germany (photo by Chuck Biscuito)
Many people try to avoid crashing cars. Jordan Haynes does it for a living. To say he likes his job would be an understatement.
Find out how Jordan helps the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) obtain auto safety data in this feature story for Popular Mechanics magazine.
Categories: Journalism · Profile · Technology
Bryant Magazine, Technology Issue (Spring 2007)
Bryant University, a business and liberal arts school based in Smithfield, Rhode Island, uses its eponymous magazine to communicate with some 40,000 alumni.
In Spring 2007, Bryant decided to devote an issue of Bryant Magazine to examining the business impact of emerging technologies including wikis, VoIP, hardware virtualization and affordable home robots.
Working with communications firm Lipman Hearne, I interviewed a variety of Bryant sources and then wrote both of the magazine’s major feature articles.
Categories: Academia · Business · Communications · Education · Journalism · Technology
Tagged: alumni magazine, Bryant University, Lipman Hearne, Rhode Island, robots, Smithfield, VoIP, wiki
Bloggers are everywhere (photo by Álvaro Ibáñez)
In early 2007, I wrote an article for PC Magazine assessing whether the blogging phenomenon was here to stay or whether it was just a blip on the radar.
In the years since then, it seems like blogs have become even more prominent as sources of news, gossip and entertainment. I hear that the coolest writers are even presenting their portfolios in a blog format… 
Categories: Journalism · Technology · Trend
