The eForum

An exhibit that celebrates the synergy between high fashion and high tech, #techstyle is also a showcase of collaboration between innovators in both spheres. It features pieces from the MFA’s collection of contemporary fashion and accessories as well as works specially commissioned for the exhibit from designers as far away as Paris and as close by as Somerville, Massachusetts.

In this podcast, Michelle Finamore, Curator of Fashion Arts at the MFA, discusses some of the exhibit’s highlights and what they tell us about the impact new technology is having on fashion’s artistic side.

Above: Designed by Iris van Herpen and Neri Oxman, printed by Stratasys, Anthozoa Cape and Skirt, Voltage Haute (photo courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

At this year’s Connected Things Conference, one of the topics you can expect to come up is the respective role of network edge devices versus the cloud in the Internet of Things — specifically with respect to smart factories.

That is, in fact, one of the topics covered in this pre-event podcast with one of the speakers — Michael Murray, General Manager of the Industrial Sensing Group at Analog Devices. Other questions covered in this podcast and at the conference include:

* What are the pitfalls of adopting IoT in the factory?

* What are some of the hottest use cases right now?

* What are questions that organizations should be asking and who should be doing the asking?

Take a listen!

When the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge presents its upcoming event focused on CRISPR technology, this controversial genetic research will be discussed from all sides — as a huge technology breakthrough, as a complex ethical and regulatory issue, and in terms of what this research means to ordinary human beings facing the unimaginable crisis of hearing that their son has a fatal and incurable genetic disease.

That’s the story Andrés Treviño will be sharing as a member of this event’s distinguished panel. Listen to a preview now in this MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Thought Leadership Podcast.

Kirsten Chambers-Taylor is consul and head of trade and investment at the British Consulate General in Kendall Square. That’s the largest foreign trade and investment delegation in the Boston area and one of the largest operating in the tech sector anywhere.

What better place then to get a head start on the topics our panel will take up at our December 8th Innovation Series event titled, “The International Startup.” The event offers a look at the markets, investment resources, talent, and breakthrough technologies tech founders can leverage outside the US — and how to do that.

Listen to what Kirsten has to say, starting with her mission here in Boston:

Fleet Advantage is a Florida-based company reinventing the trucking industry by combining Internet of Things technologies, including intelligent sensor networks, with allied disciplines like big data analytics. Its President and CFO, Brian Holland, will be speaking at our upcoming program all about IoT’s transportation impact.

Ahead of that event, we asked Brian to sit down for one of our podcasts to get a close-up view of how his company is using IoT. One key to its success is how the company integrates a broad range of diverse technologies and disciplines — for example, by leveraging intelligence and sensors already embedded in trucks and by close collaboration with partners in other industries, such as financial services. It’s a formula that has worked well for Fleet Advantage and possibly could work for other companies focusing on similar applications in transportation and elsewhere.

If you want to know what student (or recently graduated) entrepreneurs need to succeed, you should ask one. Better yet, ask one who has raised tens of millions of dollars in venture money. That’s the idea behind bringing back a former winner as a panelist in this year’s Beantown Throwdown student pitch-off.

Just like last year, the 2015 Beantown Throwdown on Friday, October 9th, will feature an all-star panel of key players from Boston’s startup ecosystem who will interview student startup teams in front of an audience cast in the role of investors. After hearing the students’ pitches and answers to panel questions, each “investor” then votes for which startup is most worthy by investing up to a million dollars of play money. The panel also kicks off the evening with a discussion on issues impacting the student startup scene — which, if it’s anything like last year’s discussion — promises to keep the audience fully engaged.

Those panel members are Scott Kirsner, the Boston Globe’s Innovation Economy columnist, Tom Coburn, CEO of Jebbit (a startup digital marketing platform), and Katie Rae, the Managing Director of Project 11, a VC firm, and former manager of TechStars Boston.

Dip Patel, whose company ecoVent won the first student pitch-off two years ago, will also be on the panel.

As a former winner, and still very much in startup mode, Dip brings a particularly informed perspective on what it takes for young entrepreneurs to succeed — and how the rest of us can help. (Student loan reform is a particular hot button.) So, in addition to inviting him on the panel, we also did a podcast, which you can listen to here:

 

In the last couple of years, Microsoft has greatly expanded its initiative to engage with other companies, including many startups, in open collaborative technology-sharing partnerships. A key player in this initiative is Ivan Judson, a Microsoft computer scientist. In this interview with Ivan, you will hear why both he and Microsoft are so enthusiastic about open collaboration, especially when it comes to the Internet of Things.

He also discusses:

*What Microsoft hopes to gain from these partnerships

*What startups should do if they want to partner with Microsoft

*Which technologies and types of problems are prime candidates for this engagement model

The first question Dropbox Founder Drew Houston answered last night at his fireside chat with Jason Pontin (Editor in Chief of Technology Review and Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum) was how he scales great talent as his company has grown.

This is what he said:

“You come into MIT and you’re like, “I’m pretty good at math.” And then you take one of your first math courses — you’re like, ‘Okay, never mind.’

“Which is really valuable because then what ‘good’ looks like really changes. And so you set a whole new standard for the kind of person you want to bring into your company. . . . Most of the early team were people that we knew from school. That was really important because whether you’re two people, or 10 people, or 100 people, or whatever size — that little group is the seed crystal for what your company becomes. Because it’s very rare that you have someone good who wants to join people that they think aren’t as good.  And so keeping that talent bar super high is something that we obsess over I’m sure.”

TriNet’s own Elizabeth Brashears, SPHR, Director of Human Capital Consulting, was recently featured alongside other industry experts in this piece by Erin Osterhaus, the Managing Editor of Software Advice’s HR blog, The New Talent Times. Also included in the discussion is Raymond A. Parker, Senior Vice President, Human Resource Consulting for SOI

When you ask people to envision the future of work, they might think of an office with all the high-tech accoutrements seen in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 blockbuster, Minority Report. Then, when you ask those same people to envision the future of human resources, a profession most generally associated in pop references to the oft-suffering (and insufferable) Toby from The Office, there is a disconnect. Toby can’t use touch screen computers! He’s definitely not as tech-savvy and cool as Tom Cruise’s character in the Spielberg film.

But the HR technology evolution is coming. What are the changes HR professionals like Toby (most of them probably less annoying) will have to cope with in the coming years, and what can companies do to help them prepare? The HR experts I interviewed provided the following predictions and tips:

Prediction 1: In-house HR will downsize and outsourcing will increase.

As new software solutions allow employees to perform much of their own data entry through self-service portals, experts predict in-house HR departments will shrink. However, there will be increased opportunities for those in the HR profession outside of a company’s four walls as the demand for outsourced HR services will increase.

For benefits administration in particular, outsourcing will grow. Elizabeth Brashears, the director of Human Capital Consulting at TriNet, a cloud-based HR management firm for white-collar employees, believes benefits administration will be especially impacted as a result of increasing regulations and a globalized workforce. Brashears says, “As regulations surrounding employment, and particularly benefits, become more and more complex, I believe that companies will turn to field experts to help navigate through the landscape.”

Prediction 2: Strategic thinking will become in-house HR’s new core competence.

The leaner version of HR that remains will need to reposition itself as a strategic partner within the business. In fact, the trend toward smaller, more strategy-focused HR departments was predicted 11 years ago in SHRM’s 2002 report, The Future of the HR Profession.

Raymond A. Parker, Senior Vice President – Human Resource Consulting for Florida-based SOI, a TriNet company that focuses on grey- and blue-collar employees, notes, “The role of the chief human resource management (CHRM) will be to position and effectively communicate human resource management (HRM) insight for the organization’s strategic decision-making. The ability to interact at enterprise level as a genuine and valued partner to the ‘C-Suite’ requires not only business acumen that will carry the organization forward, but also a well-grounded generalist knowledge, skill and ability in human resource management, the more comprehensive term for HR, encompassing the complete scope of a full functioning HRM professional and department.”

In fact, the shift toward a more strategic HR department is now so strong that Brashears predicts the trend toward a more strategic HR functi...