Jordan To Discuss Personal Technology Market At Major National Conference

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (September 12, 2007) – John Jordan, executive director of the Center for Digital Transformation at Penn State's Smeal College of Business, will be a panelist in a forum discussion on the personal technology market at the DEMOfall 07 conference on Sept. 26 in San Diego.

For more than 16 years, DEMO conferences, held in February and September, have identified and debuted to an elite audience the products most likely to have a significant impact on the marketplace and market trends in the coming year.

At the close of this year's fall event, DEMO will hold a forum with a panel of journalists and technology experts, including Jordan, who will be asked to identify a few of the products and technologies that will be the most significant in the coming year. The panelists will share the products they would like to see come to market and the opportunities they envision for new products to find success in the personal tech product market.

Joining Jordan on the panel will be moderator John Gallant, president and editorial director, Network World; Ed Baig, personal technology columnist, USA Today; Scott Sangster, director of strategic planning and development, Walt Disney Internet Group; and Kara Swisher, co-executive editor, The Wall Street Journal.

"Given the personalities on this panel, and their tech credentials, this is sure to be a quick-witted and fascinating discussion," said DEMO Executive Producer Chris Shipley. "I'm looking forward to hearing about the products that these tech followers wish were available in the market—and I imagine some enterprising entrepreneurs in the audience will be taking notes and planning ahead to DEMO 2008."

DEMOfall 07 will be the launch-pad event for 70 new technologies selected from across the spectrum of the tech industry. Each product is selected to debut at the conference because of its anticipated impact on the marketplace—either ushering in an entirely new product category or upsetting an established status quo.

At Smeal, Jordan's research focuses on emerging technologies and their impact on business strategy, design, and practice. His Ph.D. dissertation, on the wide use of engineering images and metaphors in American society in the early 20th century, was published by the University of North Carolina Press. His research has also been published in American National Biography, Technology and Culture, and other academic journals.

Since 1997, Jordan has written the monthly emerging technologies newsletter Early Indications (www.smeal.psu.edu/cdt/pubs/earlyindications). He has also reviewed books for both Harvard Review and Upside, and has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Investor's Business Daily, and the International Herald Tribune.

Jordan teaches information technology and innovation and entrepreneurship in the Smeal MBA Program. Before joining the college, he combined business and technology research with client responsibilities in the Office of the Chief Technologist at Capgemini, the Center for Business Innovation at Ernst & Young, and the Applied Technology Group at Computer Sciences Corporation. Prior to entering consulting, he won teaching awards at Harvard University and the University of Michigan.

Jordan holds a bachelor's degree from Duke University, a master's degree from Yale University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.