VisiCalc and the Rise of the PC Spreadsheet
The big computer mainframes of the 1960s and even the minicomputers of the time were not accessible enough to provide the type of direct experience needed to play with the numbers by making multiple changes and producing various scenarios that would make the spreadsheets so valuable later on. It was the microprocessor-enabled PCs that made possible the successive lineage of major digital spreadsheet applications – VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft’s Excel, and Google Sheets that transformed modern organizational practices.
Hypertext, Ad Inventory, and the Use of Behavioral Data
A new advertising environment emerged with the Internet and its click environment. The hypertext system, with its global connections to “new inventory” of browser-view-able webpage content divided into multiple sections of advertising potential, started a new era of personalizable “banner” ads. An offshoot of the ad economy emerged powerfully with keyword search and auctioning, exemplified by Google. This post discusses how the online ad economy emerged and became the basis of a new means of economic production based on the wide-scale collection of data and its processing into prediction products.
Five Stages of ICT for Global Development
Summarized remarks from “Five Stages of Global ICT4D: Governance, Network Transformation, and the Increasing Utilization of Surplus Behavioral Data for Prediction Products and Services,” presented at the 27th AMIC Annual Conference on 17-19 June 2019 at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. This presentation will explore and outline the following stages of economic and social development utilizing […]
Digital Spreadsheets – Part 5 – Numeracy and the Power of Zero
The zero is an extraordinary cognitive invention that has been central to the quantitative workings of the spreadsheet. In conjunction with Indo-Arabic numerals and double-entry accounting techniques, the spreadsheet has been crucial to the rise of modern capitalism and that peculiar historical manifestation, the contemporary corporation.
Metrics, Analytics, and Visualization
Understanding metrics is a significant component in evaluating global media, social media, and culture industries. Measurements of magazine and newspaper circulation, book readership, as well as television and radio audiences, have each had a distinguished history in the media field. The Nielsen ratings, for example, have been a crucial part of the television industry and […]
Digital Spreadsheets – Techno-Epistemological Power over People and Resources
Understanding spreadsheets helps us see how they work in organizations and how they are implicated in the reproduction of information practices and institutional memories over time. I previously described the different media components of the spreadsheet that come together to create the gridmatic framework that registers, classifies, and identifies new conceptual understandings of organizational dynamics. These institutions or collectivities can be a neighborhood coffee shop or a global corporation; they can be a local Girl Scout Chapter or an international NGO.
GLOBAL INNOVATION INDEX
The Global Innovation Index (GII) signifies the key role of innovation in economic growth, competitiveness, and sustainability. Co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the GII attempts to identify and measure key innovation drivers that assist countries in developing policies to increase employment, improve productivity, and support long-term output growth. […]
Russian Interference, Viral Sharing, and Friends Lying to Friends on Social Media in the 2016 Elections
As discussed previously, social media is now a central part of modern democracies and their election processes. This was touted in the Obama presidential election in 2008 but became even more evident in the 2016 U.S. election, notably for unexpected 304-232 electoral college victory by Donald Trump. The real estate magnate and reality show TV […]
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