Era of IT Analytic

Introduction

Year 2012 is predicted to become the year of analytics. Most corporate already install analytic or business intelligence system to support their business. Big corporation start to realize that analytic can support and save their spending on human experts and efforts. Many aspects on our modern society will depend on this technology on near future.

Why?

    Just Imagine, how to analyze the pattern found on a gene illness. Traditionally, researchers look the data one by one. Semi modern researcher use tools like Microsoft Excel or maybe Mat Lab to analyze the data further. But nowadays technology enable computer to find the pattern by itself. This technology is called as data mining and its derivation on business called business intelligence / analytic.

Where?

It has been taking place all over the world. Accenture, Cap Gemini, IBM, and Microsoft frequently report about their success in implementing Business Intelligence (interchangeably with analytic and data mining) all over the world. It is the new hype of information technology on hand for current organization.

Closing

As analytic is going to become a mundane tools for organization to thrive, it is a good time to try to use analytic for our own good. The simplest on is used on blog to track how many people came, the more complex one used on Facebook analytic. Many aspect of our modern technology has used this technology, nowadays. Happy try, learn, and get the essence of analytic software then! 🙂

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Guitar Tablature Steganography

Introduction

This morning, I had an idea of using guitar tablature to hide information. More detail on steganography can be read here. In this picture embedded “Mogok Kuliah Senin” message.

Figure 1.Picture with a message

The Idea

Guitar had 6 preset setting for the strings, and every string had their own base note. The idea is using the number to indicate how much increment is needed for each letter from the base note. For example the first 8 number indicate letter ‘M’ because E is the fifth alphabet and the 13th (5+8) alphabet is ‘M’ and so on. Figure 2 can help visualize the concept.

Figure 2.How to decrypt

The solution

With the method stated earlier, we can extract information from Figure 1 to create Figure 3. And that’s guitar tablature steganography.

Figure 3.Extracted Information

Virtual Teaming, What We Need To Know

Introduction

The use of virtual teams in corporations increased much in these decent centuries. Internet really change the way people live, including business. Adaptations from physical to digital communication do pose many challenges. So, what’s the current research about the virtual teaming?

 

Current condition

Lead a virtual team poses a great challenge as we can’t create trust, loyalty, presence, and relation. At the same time, global outsourcing is becoming more and more popular as it is economically more feasible. Internet enables business to increase efficiency of talent utilization. A neat thing that is impossible before the digital era.

 

Is it really effective?

    Yes it is. A report from Accenture [1] state that if a business wants to become more effective, they must make efficient use of the regional resource. This report map talent by geographical groups. In a decade, talent outsourcing will be shifted to Asia as the wage is cheaper there.

    Some big corporations had reap the benefit from global outsourcing, especially in IT and HR division. How can it be? It is done by using virtual teaming, by the help of the internet.

 

Can We Practice?

    Here goes the tricky part. If globalization is a fact and virtual team problem is a fact. How can we learn to cope with it? A unique approach is stated in [2] journal. The authors state that we can learn how to manage virtual teams from massively multiplayer online game. Video games encompasses many complex problem need to be solved as a team. It bring many means of doing complex coordination and bring a real experience to people interact with virtual teams.

 

What’s the important point then?

More than game, the author found that there is several qualities need to be sharpened that differentiate between good and bad virtual team. Those qualities are articulate vision, commitments, performance assessment, blending, and right tools. Learn well about these things will make you perform in virtual teaming

 

References

[1] Cooper, Tim et al. 2010. Creating a winning geographic strategy. Outlook : Accenture.
[2] Denning, Peter J et al. 2010. Orchestrating Coordination in Pluralistic Networks.

Digitization for competitiveness

In this article, I’m going to review digitization as an opportunity for industries to improve their economic value. This reality gives opportunity for IT industries to rise significantly. More than that, if we can read the gap and leap over it, it is the golden time for IT startup era.

 

Digital = competitive?

Just read Booz report ^[1] on digitization. There, I found an interesting quotation “Digitization offers the potential for old-economy sectors to make great strides in pushing efficiency and customer convenience”. It is an interesting statement, especially for an Informatics engineer. Is it real? Chart 1 state the current condition of digitization in our current era.

Chart 1. The Industry Digitization Index^[1]

    Industrial environment is constantly changing from time to time and Booz found that left behind companies can achieve great benefit from implementing digitization process. So what can we do? For me, IT startup is the answer.

 

Really ? IT Startup ?

    Why must IT startup? Let’s think for a while. How many IT industries in the world compared with other industries? How much it need to hire big IT consultant to develop system? As industry struggle to rise with fair price, IT startups become an attractive solution. That’s the competitiveness of IT startup in our current era, once again if we can leap over the gap.

 

A Time for Bold Moves

Technology implementers have great opportunities to exploit industrial need. Especially in global economy environment and economy turmoil nowadays, it is time to make bold moves. An Accenture report^[2] state “It is during turbulent times that companies can open up the greatest gaps between themselves and their competitors”. It is time to convince companies to make bold moves. It is time for IT startup to rise to serve as collaboration partner.

 

Reference

[1] Friedrich, et al. 2011. Measuring Industry Digitization: Leaders and Laggards in the Digital Economy. Booz & Company.

[2] Firstbrook, Caroline. 2009. A Time for Bold Moves. Accenture.

[StudentsxCEOs] Values to Success (Mr.Palgunadi T Setyawan)

Introduction

This topic is shared by Mr.Palgunadi T Setyawan. He is a great motivator with great track records. He has been leading on many industries. Currently, he works as commissioner in Adaro Energy Tbk. In this session, he emphasizes the need of value in our action.

Independent already or…?

Bung Hatta state that a person is liberated when that person can do utmost, smart, and sincere. That’s why we need to create this country Indonesia. It is to liberate all citizens one by one to become one independent country as our foundation state “Persatuan Indonesia” not “Bersatunya Indonesia”. We are still struggling to become independent right now.

Culture

A nation is identified by its behavior. Behavior reflects value we believe and culture reflect value in practice. If there’s something wrong in our nation’s value, it is hypocrisy. Without strong value, there won’t be any strong culture, and there won’t be any great cohesion in our country. We need to cover the gap of this cohesion by eliminating un-clarity, un-competence, and un-consistency.

Importance of Culture

    A popular noodle in Indonesia do market study once and state that:

1. Noodle foundation: local taste.
2. Technology to create that taste
3. Marketing: price and container design

A scientist can help this country to create efficient technology. Yes we can. Yet, we need to remember the values that we believe in, the local taste. The value promised when this country is founded, “Persatuan Indonesia”.

Conclusion

Mr.Palgunadi is a great motivator. Many things he state can’t be crystalized in written form. But one thing to be noted that as long Indonesian scientists believe in our good value, there will always be a way.

[StudentsxCEOs] Cooperation between Innovator and Industry (Mr.Eko Supriyanto)

Introduction

This topic is shared by Mr.Eko Supriyanto. He is a great scientist with many innovations. Currently, he works as head of biomedical department in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). In this session, he emphasizes the need of partnership between innovator and industry.

Learn from Malaysia

There are several points that we need to learn from Malaysia:

1. Malaysia allocate great budget in research and development (around 600 Million rupiah used every year).
2. The professor in UTM must be an inventor and entrepreneur. Their basic function is not on teaching but encouraging students to innovate.
3. Certification of laboratory and products.

Important Point to Consider

    We need to consider 8 points in innovating:

1. The product

   What’s the product we want to create?

2. Team

   Great team (lawyer, engineer, economist, etc.)

3. Government policy

   Whether the policies support innovation?

4. Patent

   Put patent in every level of development. Be sure on the product safety.

5. Time

   Market your product fast in the right time.

6. Link

   Make good link on many segment,

7. 3 pillars

   Don’t forget about 3 pillars (government, scientist, business) and its interconnectedness. We can’t create everything by ourselves.

Conclusion

From Malaysia we learn the importance of budget, innovation, and certification. Let’s become the inventor ourselves. With the consideration of the factors and determination we can do it.

[StudentsxCEOs] Technology Transfer from Laboratory to Industry (Mr.Nurul Taufiqu Rochman)

Introduction

This topic is shared by Mr. Nurul Taufiqu Rochman. He is a nanotechnology scientist with great track record, both in industry and science world. Currently, he works in Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). In this session, he emphasizes the need of technology transfer from laboratory to industrial environment and how to start the connection.

Indonesia… Big potential?

After the Indonesia’s import channel activated back then, products are imported in crazy number. About 100 trillion rupiah used to import raw material only. Why must we import raw material? It is because we can’t produce the raw material ourselves. We have many scientists. We have many industries. Unfortunately, we also have much un-interconnectedness between them.

Problem and solution

    So, what’s the main problem faced in our industries? The major problem revolved around technology and information. Many industries haven’t had right use of technology and haven’t informed about possibility to increase their process.

    Look at this reality, what must scientists do then? It is simple, visit the industries. Mr.Nurul suggested that scientists must visit industries regularly and be creative in approach.

Conclusion

Scientist can give industry new value. Scientists can increase the efficiency of industrial process (especially in small medium enterprise), so scientists need to visit industry regularly to help industries get information and apply the right technology.

[StudentsxCEOs] Science in Corporate World (Mr.Andreas Raharso)

Introduction

This topic is shared by Mr.Andreas Raharso. He currently works as Dean of Hay Group Global Research Center for Strategy Execution on International Indonesian Scholar Association Seminars. The purpose of his presentation is to emphasize that researcher is an important component in Indonesia current industrial environment.

Commodization trap

Nearly all brand in our modern era start to diversify. McDonald starts to sell nice coffee while Starbucks starts to sell nice sandwich. Brands easily diversify to chase what other people chase and lose their own identity. That’s what commodization trap meant.

Scientist can free industry from this trap by give new insight. Scientist can give industry a new value to chase unexplored area.

Research is important

Gillette, once target India market as the expected market size is big. They conduct consumer behavior research on Indian people who live in America. The result, the product fails marketed in India. After bought by PnG, they do another research. Now, the researcher team flies to India to do rigor market research. For information, PnG also supported by 8000 scientists, 1000 doctor, 123 science discipline, spread over 72 countries. The result, now the Gillette product makes a big success in India.

Research is important in Industry to give value on product in industry, more important, to ensure industry sustainability. The question is simple, how we do it? Mr.Andreas emphasizes that big corporation like Unilever, GE, and IBM give a great attention to research division. The research division leader can report directly to CEO to determine method to increase company value.

Conclusion

Scientist can give industry great value. They can help industry chase new unexplored areas and make profit from there, yet scientist need to be respected. Scientist needs to get important place in current industry to ensure industry sustainability.

Cleanroom Software Engineering – Short Notes

Introduction

Although has been around for years, cleanroom rarely heard in Software engineer community. Many software engineers ask about the benefit and existence of cleanroom itself. In this article I want to tell a short story about cleanroom and the important factor that we need to be aware of as software engineer.

What is it about?

Cleanroom is developed by Harlan Mills, 1980. He suggest that as with cleanroom hardware Development, we need to focus on defect prevention rather than defect removal^[1]. It means we need to make sure that our artifact and process in every process level must be guarded well. Everything must be error free. Rather than fix error after debug / testing, we can fix the error even from design and analysis level by implementing formal method and statistical measurement.

Clean or clear?

So it must be clean. How we do it? That’s the meaning of my headline here. Our specification must be extremely clear so our increment can be clean. Cleanroom incorporates method called Box Structure Specification that incorporate black box (input output mapping), state box (state in black box), and clear box (algorithm in state). The use of box model can clear the ambiguity of analysis and design artifact plus a very unique possibility of test the box model error.

Figure 1. Black Box representation

Figure 2. State Box representation

Figure 3. Clear Box representation

Process model

Cleanroom, like other method have its own process model depicted in Figure 4.

Figure 4.Cleanroom Process Model (adapted from ^[2])

Closing

Although cleanroom held great potential of quality improvement, its development is slow. Most engineers who know this method think it is too theoretical and not practical, especially in our agile era.

Last words, this is a respectable invention. Many interesting technique and method applied here. Nice addition for our knowledge as software engineer.

Reference

[1] Mills, Harlan, et al. 1987. Cleanroom Software Engineering.

[2] Oshana, Robert. 1998. An Industrial Application of Cleanroom Software Engineering – Benefits Through Tailoring.

Setting Fast Light Toolkit (FLTK) library for Bjarne Stroustrup’s exercise in Visual Studio 2010

This time I want to share about how to use Fast Light Toolkit (FLTK) 1.1.10 in Visual Studio 2010 and how to set the Bjarne Stroustrup’s environment for trying the exercise in Chapter 12.

1. Download FLTK 1.1.10.
2. Make new project in C++

   Make sure that you choose empty project.

   

3. Open the properties window of the current project

   

4. In C/C++ -> General, set the Additional Include Directories to your FLTK path

   

5. In Linker->General, set the Additional Include Directories to your library folder path. There’re some tutorials about how to compile it on internet, you guys can Google it.

   

6. In Linker->Input, set the additional depency with

   “fltkd.lib;wsock32.lib;comctl32.lib;fltkjpegd.lib;fltkimagesd.lib”

   Ignore specific default libraries : “libcd.lib”

   

7. Voila, the setting is done, you can use the FLTK library now. But there’s something more you need to do if you want to setting the Stroustrup’s environment.
8. Download Stroustrup’s codes and add all codes in “GUI” folder into your project.
9. And now, you can try what is taught in Stroustrup’s book.

May help 🙂