Michael T. Jones

Chief Technology Advocate, Google

Reshaping of Computing

Michael T. Jones is Google's Chief Technology Advocate, charged with advancing the technology to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Michael travels the globe to meet and speak with governments, businesses, partners and customers in order to advance Google's mission and technology. He previously was Chief Technologist of Google Maps, Earth, and Local Search--the teams responsible for providing location intelligence and information in global context to users worldwide.

Before its acquisition by Google, Michael was CTO of Keyhole Corporation, the company that developed the technology used today in Google Earth. He was also CEO of Intrinsic Graphics, and earlier, was Director of Advanced Graphics at Silicon Graphics. A prolific inventor and computer programmer since the 4th grade, he has developed scientific and interactive computer graphics software, held engineering and business executive roles, and is an avid reader, traveler and amateur photographer using a home-built 4-gigapixel camera made with parts from the U2/SR71.

Michael T. Jones provides an overview of how cloud computing is transforming the role computers play in all of our lives in this exclusive Infotec video.

Nicholas Carr

Author and IT Commentator

The Cloud: Seeing Beyond the Hype

Cloud computing represents a revolutionary new approach to business IT. But the technology is still in its infancy, and many obstacles to adoption remain. Drawing on his bestselling book The Big Switch as well as more recent developments, Nicholas Carr will put cloud computing into a practical business context, explaining the economic, technological, and strategic forces propelling the trend. He will suggest "five ways of looking at the cloud," providing case studies of businesses that are using the "world-wide computer" to cut costs, spur innovation, and enhance collaboration.
 

About Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr writes on the social, economic, and business implications of technology. He is the author of the 2008 Wall Street Journal bestseller The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, which is "widely considered to be the most influential book so far on the cloud computing movement," according to the Christian Science Monitor. His earlier book, Does IT Matter?, published in 2004, "lays out the simple truths of the economics of information technology in a lucid way, with cogent examples and clear analysis," said The New York Times. He is working on a new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, which will be published in 2010. Carr's books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Carr has written for many periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, The Financial Times, Die Zeit, The Futurist, and Advertising Age, and has been a columnist for The Guardian and The Industry Standard. His much-discussed essay Is Google Making Us Stupid?, which appeared as the cover story of the Atlantic Monthly's Ideas issue in the summer of 2008, has been collected in three popular anthologies:The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best Technology Writing, and The Best Spiritual Writing. Carr has written a personal blog, Rough Type, since 2005. He is a member of the Encyclopaedia Britannica's editorial board of advisors and is on the steering board of the World Economic Forum's cloud computing project.

Earlier in his career, Carr was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review and a principal at Mercer Management Consulting.

Carr has been a speaker at MIT, Harvard, Wharton, the Kennedy School of Government, NASA, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas as well as at many industry, corporate, and professional events throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English and American literature and language, from Harvard University.

Gordon Whitten

Founder and CEO, Sojern

Seven Secrets to IT Entrepreneurial Success

Gordon will share seven secrets he has learned from his 20 years of entrepreneurial efforts. These insider tips arose both from failures and successes, and he will show why a farm kid from central Nebraska has come to believe that IT is the best industry in the world in which to build a multi-million dollar growth business. Insights from his personal interactions with billionaires in the IT space will underscore these points. Gordon offers practical examples from his experience building and selling his last company to Intuit—the makers of TurboTax, Quicken and QuickBooks. The almost-incredible launch of Sojern—a VC-backed venture in the online advertising space, which he founded and runs today—will encourage you as well. Bring your dream alive: Gordon shows you how.

About Gordon Whitten

A passion for innovation has fueled Gordon Whitten's record of success as founder and CEO of Sojern and previously as founder of Income Dynamics, which was acquired by Intuit in 2003. As vice president for Intuit he launched several new consumer products and significantly increased revenue in his business unit. Gordon was named by Ernst & Young as Entrepreneur of the Year in the Iowa-Nebraska region in 2003. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration at Hastings College and was inducted into their Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000.

Gordon Whitten briefly recalls the day he, a farm kid from Central Nebraska, sold his software company to Intuit in this exclusive Infotec video.

Michael Wesch

Digital Ethnographer, Kansas State University

Mediated Culture

It took tens of thousands of years for writing to emerge after humans spoke their first words.  It took thousands more before the printing press and a few hundred again before the telegraph. Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. A Flickr here, a Twitter there, and a new way of relating to others emerges. New types of conversation, argumentation and collaboration are realized. Using examples from anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, YouTube, university classrooms, and "the future," this presentation will demonstrate the profound yet often unnoticed ways in which media "mediate" our culture.

About Michael Wesch

Dubbed "the explainer" by Wired magazine, Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist exploring the effects of new media on society and culture. After two years studying the implications of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society. His videos on culture, technology, education, and information have been viewed by millions, translated in over 15 languages, and are frequently featured at international film festivals and major academic conferences worldwide.
 
Michael has won several major awards for his work, including a Wired Magazine Rave Award, the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in Media Ecology, and he was recently named an Emerging Explorer by National Geographic. He has also won several teaching awards, including the 2008 CASE/Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year for Doctoral and Research Universities.
 

Michael Wesch discusses how technology is changing the way we relate to and connect with one another in this exclusive Infotec video.