Many of us are saddened by the Boston Marathon bombings and are relieved that the ordeal has come to an end. Or, has it? I think each of us will take our own time to reflect on the events, digest both the reliable as well as the mis-information that is being directed us from all directions, and derive our own conclusions. As I wrote in my last post, various technologies played important roles in identifying the suspects and eventually capturing one of them. They brought to light several important things – explosion of technologies, how the law enforcement relied on distributed technologies (video tapings from sources other than Law enforcement), social media and crowd-searching (crowd sourced searching), and thermal imaging.
Frankly what got lost in all of these discussions is how every one of these items is far more complicated than the positive aspects which helped us in the end. And most importantly, what led to the surviving suspect was an actual curious human being and not the technology. Quite obviously, every step of the way, there were pitfalls – privacy, security, misuse of captured information, dangers of subjectivity arising from crowdsourcing the search whi has a high probability of the wrong people being implicated etc. etc. And the massive data that was helpful in cases like this and others is the “Big Data“.
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Events like the bombings in Boston affect you in ways that is very hard to predict or even understand. It is so close to where we live and work. Even people like me who visit that part of Boston infrequently know the area well enough. So, it is understandable that these tend to leave lasting impressions on us. As we get to hear more information about the three who died and over 170 or so who were injured, we feel shaken.
During tragedies like these, the recent advances in technologies have played tremendous roles – both positive and negative. As reported in Huffington Post and Chicago Tribune, apparently the circuit board used to trigger the bomb has been located. Of course, as we all know, during these times, it pays to be skeptical about such news until official word comes out, but if past knowledge about such bombings elsewhere is the world are any indication, there are electronic circuits involved and possibly a triggering device such as a cell phone. This is obviously how devious minds use technology to cause destruction.
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The admissions cycle is over here at Wellesley and everywhere. I always felt that releasing admissions results on April 1 was a cruel joke. Of course, Wellesley does it a bit earlier. This year we partnered with Admissions to implement a paperless admissions process and I, as a member of the Board of Admissions, read applications. This gave me a much better understanding of the process. Admissions staff were terrific partners, willing to work with us to tweak the systems as needed, and most importantly, they are believers and the best advocates one could have hoped for. We have one of the most impressive and more diverse group of students who have been admitted. Congratulations to our colleagues in Admissions.
When we began discussions about paperless admissions approximately a year ago, we faced the same exact questions all CIOs face. Should we build something or buy something, like Slate? Of course, there is no clear answer this loaded question and it depends on so many factors. I would say I am clearly an outlier in the way I think about the answer to these questions.
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