Center for Digital Transformation Hosts Spring Research Forum
To begin to formulate research opportunities and build its community of practitioners and scholars, the Center for Digital Transformation at Penn State's Smeal College of Business held its semiannual research forum on May 15 and 16 in University Park, Pa.
Center For Digital Transformation Hosts Spring Research Forum
Event explores "Risks and Opportunities in the Data Economy"
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (May 24, 2007) – To begin to formulate research opportunities and build its community of practitioners and scholars, the Center for Digital Transformation at Penn State's Smeal College of Business held its semiannual research forum on May 15 and 16 in University Park, Pa.
Speakers from such firms as Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, Google, and Metaweb addressed topics including enterprise risk management, Web 2.0, and personal data privacy. Attendees represented a broad spectrum of industry leaders including American Express, Capgemini, Ernst & Young, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Mellon Bank, NCR, SAP Labs, Satyam Computer Services, and Xerox.
Opening the conference, the center's executive director, John Jordan, noted that "former Citibank CEO Walter Wriston said 25 years ago that 'information about money has become more important than money.'" Jordan then pointed to a variety of data-intensive business models, noting that Thomsen had just that day announced a $17 million acquisition of Reuters. Other less obvious examples included Pantone, which profits from information about color.
In regard to risks, Jordan noted the portability of digital data, having calculated that paper records of 26 million people—the size of a data breach at the Veterans Administration last year—would weigh more than five tons, counting file cabinets.
Sessions were devoted to the privacy risks in recommender systems, Web 2.0, a panel on enterprise risk management, frontiers in multi-protocol wireless encryption, vertical search in the chemistry discipline, and a demonstration of Freebase, a new product from Metaweb.
The next meeting of the center’s corporate affiliates will occur in the fall.
For more information about the Center for Digital Transformation or its research meetings, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/cdt or contact Heather Weikel at hweikel@psu.edu.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
