Author: Justin Hesser

On November 4, New York state electors will face some major decisions, including whether to re-elect Governor Andrew Cuomo to a second term. Also on the ballot will be a proposal to approve the Smart Schools Bond Act, which would allow the State to sell $2 billion worth of bonds to fund adoption of technological upgrades in classrooms.

Per the question's official text, the funding would "provide access to classroom technology and high-speed Internet connectivity to equalize opportunities for children to learn, add classroom space to expand high-quality pre-kindergarten programs, replace classroom trailers with permanent instructional space and install high-tech smart security features in schools."

Cuomo introduced the Smart Schools Bond Act, which would distribute money based on the school aid formula, with community leaders, parents, school districts and students coming together to decide how exactly to allocate it. According to the New York State Broadband Program Office, 56 percent of the state's schools have insufficient broadband access, and 31 schools have none at all.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt has joined forces with local leaders, including Geoffrey Canada, the president of the non-profit Harlem Children's Zone, to stress the importance of technology in education in a series of public forums. Proponents say that investment like this is crucial, especially for the development of the STEM fields, and can lead to economic benefits for the region down the road.

Long a leader in a myriad other areas, New York is an emerging technological hotspot, thanks in part to public programs, such as the launch of startup portal Digital.NYC, which this blog reported on recently. Leaders hope that investment in tech education now will make the region attractive to software developing companies in the future.

FileMaker Inc. has published an online guide to creating high-performance custom FileMaker solutions. The guide, titled simply "Performance," is the first in a series of solution design guides that will be made available for download from the free-to-join FileMaker Technical Network. Through the Network, users can join a community of FileMaker developers and experts to share ideas and solutions, as well as download articles, scripts, software and technical briefs.

The 30-page guide outlines how to create custom solutions that are not only efficient but easy to use, both in terms of their visual design and for subsequent maintenance and updating. The guide is suitable for both Apple and Windows users, and it focuses especially on mobile support. Readers will learn how to automate tasks through the FileMaker server to improve the performance of FileMaker Pro for iPad and iPhone.

"The Performance guide helps new users to optimize their new FileMaker solutions and experienced developers to tune up their existing solutions," said vice president of marketing and services Ryan Rosenberg. "High-performing solutions are easier to maintain and more enjoyable for people to use."

Additionally, the company announced that a free webinar will be held on October 28 on "Eight ways to make FileMaker databases run even faster." The webinar will be co-hosted by FileMaker technical marketing manager Matthew O'Dell and certified developer and authorized trainer Mark Richman of Skeleton Key, a St. Louis-based company that, like Kyo Logic, is a member of the FileMaker Academy. There will be two sessions on that date, at 11:00 am and 2:00 pm ET.

Relational database application FileMaker is helping businesses greatly reduce costs by allowing them to closely track and streamline their operations. British management services company Eversfield Consultants reports that its system development expenses were slashed by half by hiring a FileMaker developer. Eversfield specializes in providing cost and strategy support to construction and property management organizations, and uses databases to gather information about each building in its portfolio.

Eversfield attempted to create a FileMaker solution to enhance its property lifecycle management services by categorizing buildings by type, making it easier for employees to search through available assets.

"As we haven't got a lot of experience with FileMaker, it was very time-consuming for us to prepare our application," said Eversfield director Nick Woolcot of the process. "For this reason we couldn't focus on our core business. What's worse, we weren't happy with the performance of the app we created. Because of all that we began to consider hiring for this work a company specializing in FileMaker custom business solutions."

By turning to a certified FileMaker developer, Eversfield received expert services and an app that fulfills all of the company's needs, and they are already reaping the benefits. As well as being able to focus on core business processes rather than software development, it was of vital importance that the app be accessible from mobile devices, since many of Eversfield's business is done in the field during meetings with clients.

Custom database software can help companies in any industry by organizing all the information they need in a manner that is easily accessible. Developers can also provide instruction in how to use FileMaker so that IT managers can expand and update their own databases in the future as their business evolves.

Big data is becoming increasingly accessible and is no longer the exclusive purview of multinational corporations. An article in Entrepreneur magazine gives a few tips on how small businesses can also gather and analyze data to achieve better business results. Naturally, big data tools for small businesses cannot be identical to those used by major enterprises, because they have to account for the fact that small companies don't have IT departments or, in many cases, any employees with extensive IT knowledge. But with the right tools, small companies can use data to succeed nevertheless.

Here are a few things small businesses should look for in their data gathering tools:

• Ease of use: For small business managers or employees to be able to take advantage of big data, they need tools that are intuitive to use and, as the Entrepreneur article says, "can turn anyone into a data analyst."
• Adaptability: Small businesses, especially in their early stages, are very changeable: they grow quickly in size, they adjust their business strategies as they gain more insights into their industry, etc. Therefore, they need a database system that can be adapted to suit their evolving needs.
• Cloud functionality: Cloud or hybrid cloud-based solutions have a number of advantages over strictly on-site data systems. They are easier to adapt and allow for more flexibility when it comes to working remotely or allowing employees to access databases from their own mobile devices.

FileMaker covers all of these requirements and is perfectly suited for small businesses. With the help of a certified FileMaker developer, companies can create their own customized databases that will give them a clear overview of all the information they need to make better business decisions.

The City of New York launched a website on Wednesday aimed at promoting and aiding startup companies in their early stages. The site is called Digital.NYC and is the Big Apple's latest step toward becoming a hub for the tech industry like it is for so many other businesses. In March, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority awarded the generic top-level domain .nyc, which the city has been distributing to local organizations for a few weeks.

Digital.NYC was built on the Bluemix cloud platform as a service with support from the not-for-profit New York City Economic Development Corporation. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio publicly introduced the site at a press conference held in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo, home to a number of successful tech companies including e-marketplaces Etsy and Maker's Row.

"This is the first of its kind anywhere in the world, a public-private partnership to really bring all of the aspects of the industry together," he said. "We love and respect our brothers and sisters in Silicon Valley, but people here can find each other."

The website will feature an extensive database of more than 6,000 names, both companies and investors, to help promising startups find venture capital. Tech professionals will also be able to search job listings, and all interested parties can find information on upcoming courses and events, incubators and workspaces where entrepreneurs can meet to exchange ideas and business contacts.

De Blasio hopes that New York City will soon become a tech hub on par with California's Silicon Valley, producing its own software developing companies and attracting enterprising talent from around the United States and abroad.

Big data is increasingly abandoning the theoretical realm and pervading the business world in more practical ways. And with the increasing availability of data, it also becomes more important for organizations to find ways to harness that information and put it to good use. As statistician David Hand of Imperial College London says to The Huffington Post, “Nobody wants ‘data.’ What they want are the answers.”

Health care is one of the areas that stands to benefit the most from big data, as an abundance of medical information allows researchers to identify previously undetectable trends in clinical trials. In the not-too-distant future, as the Human Genome Project advances, genetic data could lead to unprecedented insight into various diseases. Application development companies are already seeing plenty of opportunities in this area through software that monitors vital statistics and sends them to a patient’s electronic health record.

As this blog reported, the business shift toward big data is already having an effect on higher education, as more students seek data training in anticipation of joining the workforce. And the trend is global: the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that there will be 1.5 million jobs for data analytics experts in the United States by 2018 and, according to HuffPost UK, the British government expects 58,000 new jobs and £216 billion (nearly $350.5 billion) in big data over the next three years.

For companies in all sectors, the need to have data-savvy employees is only going to become more pressing with time, as businesses that are quick to make the most of big data’s possibilities will have a significant advantage over those that lag behind. Custom database software can help companies in their big data endeavors by presenting vital information in a clear, easily manageable format.

Boston-based software company Apperian released the results of a survey of 100 executives at organizations that make extensive use of mobile technology. When questioned on which mobile investments have produced the most satisfying results, the most common response was custom application development, ahead of app management and bring your own device (BYOD) approaches.

Overall, companies reported positive results from mobile adoption, with 60 percent of respondents citing employee satisfaction as the biggest benefit, and 55 percent saying they had gained a competitive advantage. Sixty percent of those who reported a high degree of satisfaction have implemented a BYOD policy. Among the main issues with mobile adoption, security is the most common at 77 percent. Thirty-seven percent of respondents reported a lack of tools to determine return on investment (ROI).

"This study offers a more strategic perspective that can help identify best practices and critical success factors for senior executives to establish and improve their enterprise mobility goals," said Apperian CEO David Patrick. "As mobility in the enterprise continues to gain adoption, defining the optimal enterprise mobility strategy is absolutely critical and the information gained in this study will benefit all who lead mobility initiatives."

In order to address the issue of tracking ROI, software developing companies can adopt custom database software like FileMaker. With a customized database, businesses can keep track of all their relevant financial information and maximize their ROI by investing only in necessary features. The databases can adapt and grow along with the company, and they are fully cloud compatible, so that they remain in line with an enterprise's mobile adoption strategies and can be accessed by remote and field workers.

Big data is becoming more readily available every day, and with it come employment opportunities for those who have the skills to turn information into business results. Big data is a relatively new aspect of the business world, but it is catching on fast and in a wide variety of disparate sectors, which is driving demand for data-related training programs.

Salman Kureishy, program director for business and professional studies at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies, tells the Edmonton Journal that the school's enterprise data analytics program has seen overwhelming demand, mostly from professionals looking to add a new skill that will help them advance their careers. "Many are realizing they are moving to positions where they have to understand analysis of big data but have insufficient training," he says.

Courses like this one aim to teach students how to manage every step of the big data process: classification, manipulation, analysis and presentation. All these skills are essential for businesses to take full advantage of the information they gather.

"Being able to manage, organize and store data is important of course," says IBM Canada vice president of mergers and acquisitions Rob White. "But being able to take that data to gain insights and create meaningful information is becoming a critically important skill set."

Custom database software makes it easier for businesses to compile and analyze data. A certified FileMaker developer can create comprehensive and easy to read databases that fit the needs of each company. Training services are also available to teach managers and employees how to use FileMaker so that they can update and manage their databases, adapting them over time to their company's changing needs.

IT research firm Gartner published the results of a survey carried out in June among 302 companies worldwide regarding their views on big data. Seventy-three percent of respondents said they have invested in big data or plan to do so within the next two years, up from 64 percent in 2013. Conversely, only 24 percent say they have no plans for big data investment, down from 31 percent a year ago.

In North America, 47 percent of businesses have already begun investing, although Gartner noted that the majority of that investment is going to experimental or pilot plans, and few companies have fully implemented big data strategies. The area that has seen a greatest increase in big data application over the past year has been enhancing customer experience.

One statistic surprised the surveyors: when asked what data sources they planned on adding in the future, every option received between 30 and 40 percent of affirmative responses, including audio and video. "This overly optimistic and apparently random nature of future data sources for analysis indicates two things," said Gartner research director Nick Heudecker. "First, organizations don't have a plan for what they're going to do next. Picking everything isn't a strategy. It indicates a fear of missing out on an opportunity yet to be defined. Also, there may be a certain amount of hubris at work. If organizations can 'do big data' on transactions and log data, they may assume they can also leverage more challenging data sources as easily."

Custom database software can help companies make the most of the possibilities of big data, by organizing the information and making it easy to analyze and focus on particular areas that will yield the best results.

Three Connecticut cities are joining forces in an effort to bring ultra high-speed Internet connections to the state. Officials from New Haven, Stamford and West Hartford announced a plan on Monday to begin talks with providers who could upgrade Internet speeds up to 100 times. Companies including AT&T, CenturyLink, Cox Communications and Google Fiber have already implemented similar upgrades at the local and regional level throughout the country, but such services have not reached most of New England.

State and business officials were also present at the unveiling of the plan, and warned that a statewide installation could take anywhere between three and five years. But they also expressed their optimism that the adoption of ultra high-speed connections could provide a significant boost to Connecticut’s economy by making local businesses more competitive. West Hartford businessman Charles Ward said that Kansas City, which was the first city to begin installing Google Fiber in 2011, is already attracting a large startup community.

“We are part of a world economy,” said New Haven mayor Toni Harp. “The time has come to move forward.”

Elin Swanson Katz, the state’s consumer counsel, agreed that high-speed Internet is no longer just a commodity. “There is an overwhelming need today for cheaper, easier access to ultra high-speed Internet service,” she said. “Internet access is now a necessity. It’s like electricity.”

The plan is the latest move on the part of local and state officials to make Connecticut attractive to science and software developing companies. As mentioned on this blog recently, a science and technology startup community is in the works in Southeastern Connecticut. Obviously, this plan and others like it would benefit greatly from the availability of ultra high-speed connections.