There is a really great article in the current Leadership Issue of Reuters Magazine titled “The Made-In-China CEO” written by Senior Company News Correspondent, Terril Jones. The article looks at the two types of CEOs which now dominate China’s business landscape:  the traditional state-owned-enterprise leader who generally favors a lower risk strategy, and the “No-School CEO” that’s big on innovation and opportunity.

Zhang Yue is the featured CEO of this latter category who isn’t afraid to dream big and bold. His goal is to address the challenge of resource consumption and to make the world a more livable place in spite of increasing numbers. Some have dared to call him China’s version of Steve Jobs. After reading the article, I’m not sure I buy into that completely, but you can see that he retains many of the classic “Jobsian” attributes:  focus, passion, and drive to see the vision become reality.

Zhang is a leader by example as you’ll see from the article. One of the things that I found quite interesting is that (more…)

On Friday, June 29th, the Barbican Centre in London hosted the 2012 Apps For Good competition finals. The Apps For Good program teaches young people how to come up with and deliver mobile and Facebook applications that can make a real difference in the lives of us all. According to the Apps For Good team, there are currently 40 partner schools engaged across the UK, impacting over 1300 students. What’s more, over 100 schools and institutions are waiting to be involved!

I am unashamedly proud and thrilled to lead our Thomson Reuters efforts. This past year, we directly sponsored three schools in London financially and with tremendous mentors. We didn’t stop there.  The kids use the Google AppInventor program to create prototype versions of their idea on Android, and when Google decided to sunset the program and transfer it to MIT, the handoff was not clean. In fact, the kids were going to come back from their Christmas holidays with a system that wasn’t ready. I suggested that we would have a go at standing up the platform, and one of my mobile team members, Kevin Zimmerman in San Francisco, made it happen. I personally wanted to do more, and I was very fortunate to be able to do 2 hour Skype calls each month with different schools across the UK – and even visited one that will always be near and dear to me – Nelson Thomlinson in Wigton, Cumbria.

At the end of the program, there is a wonderful competition that takes place.  Teams submit their work to a panel that creates a short list in several sponsored categories.  The short list consists of two teams that come to London to present in a “Dragon’s Den” style competition in front of 5 judges.  Thomson Reuters sponsored the Information category, while other major companies involved in sponsorship included Dell, RIM, and Barclaycard. Some of the ideas are just amazing. The kids in the program range from 12-17 years old, and here is a sampling of some of the projects:  an app that helps you build confidence and work through tough times with motivational messages and critical help if you really hit a low; an app that lets you personally and privately monitor with your teacher your reading progress in books to prevent feeling badly for not understanding what you’re reading; and an app that lets you create visual notecards for studying for exams along with a community where you can share and reuse those notecards with other students. (more…)

Once again, we have partnered with the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) to develop this year’s British Tennis App. As the official statistics and information partner to the LTA, we are delighted to have played a part in bringing UK tennis fans all the action from this summer’s grass court tournaments via this exclusive App suitable for iPhone and Android devices.

The App is free to download and will provide live scores, results, breaking news, and the latest player images straight from the courts. In addition, users will be able to watch video from the three major events this summer – the AEGON Championships, the AEGON Classic, and the AEGON International and improved functionality this year means the App now includes live weather updates so that fans can plan their viewing.

Thomson Reuters’Global Tennis ambassador and former British No 1, Greg Rusedski will be giving round-ups and analysis of the action from the AEGON Championships, which will be uploaded every day throughout the week.

Robert Schukai, our Global Head of Mobile Technology said this about the updated App: “We have once again collaborated with the LTA to help develop the 2012 LTA Summer Events App, this truly is an App for real tennis fans in the UK. At Thomson Reuters we specialise in the exchange of information and so to be involved in creating an App which we feel really benefits fans of the game has been an extremely satisfying process for all parties involved.

“As the official Statistics and Information Partner to the LTA, Thomson Reuters is constantly striving to help tennis fans stay well informed throughout the summer of British tennis; this year’s App hosts the most relevant news, live scores, video and even live weather updates to help fans plan their tennis viewing either on site at a tournament or watching on television or online.”

To download the App for free, go to the Google Play or Apple App store and search “AEGON Tennis” or “LTA”. For more information on the App please click here.

Today, Thomson Reuters announced the acquisition of Apsmart, a London-based mobile design firm.  I think this was a tremendous move on the part of the company for a number of reasons.

First, I think that this acquisition speaks to the reality of the world today.  Very soon, there will be more mobile phones on the planet than people.  Wherever I go, whatever I do, I am constantly connected through my mobile devices.  So are you.  That connection exists in both our personal lives as well as our professional lives; in fact, our late head of research and development at Thomson Reuters, Dr. Peter Jackson, framed our lives as a “work-life blur.”  Mobile technology is at the heart of this. (more…)

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and Thomson Reuters have teamed up to provide the premier opportunity for UK technology companies to demo their products at South By Southwest Interactive.

We will be hosting UK Demo Day on Sunday, March 11th, The event will be hosted in Ballroom B in the Hilton Hotel’s “Startup Village.”

UKTI and Thomson Reuters scoured the United Kingdom to bring you the best of British tech. Following a competitive application process, UK companies spanning the digital genre have been selected to demo their cutting-edge technologies for the tech-savvy attendees of SXSWi.

Details:

Time: Sunday 11 March 2012

Invitation-only from 3:00 pm to 3:30pm / All badge entry begins at 3:30 pm and continues until 6:00 pm

Location: Hilton Hotel at Startup Village

Thomson Reuters kicked-off events for the UK Government’s “National Apprentice Week” by hosting an event on Monday February 6 in support of Digital Apprenticeships. Bob Schukai, Global Head of Mobile Technology and Stewart Pedler, global head of Marketing & Creative Services partnered with the UK Graduate Programs team to set up a trial apprenticeship in conjunction with Creative Process who assist in the placement of apprentices within organisations. A few months on from an intense two day assessment centre, we welcomed our first apprentices into the South Colonnade London office to work in the Creative Services group.

With university fees increasing in the UK and youth unemployment being at an all-time high, the Government funded apprenticeship schemes offer another avenue for entry level roles in businesses such as ours where skills can be learned “on the job” – an opportunity that many companies are now taking up.

Stewart said: “An apprenticeship scheme won’t suit all parts of our business, we need to be selective as to where something like this would work, but if it works well which for me it does, it’s a great opportunity for us to capture and mould young talent.” Over 130 representatives from creative and digital companies attended the event in London to learn more about the Digital Apprentice Program and how apprenticeships could benefit them. Speakers included Simon Waugh (pictured), CEO of the National Apprenticeships Service, Dinah Caine, CEO of Skillset and Andria Vidler, and CEO EMI Music.

Innovation in technology means rethinking how we do things — looking for opportunities to add something that wasn’t there before or inventing something new. Watch (the late) Chief Scientist Peter Jackson and Global Head of Mobile Bob Schukai improvise on electric guitars while sharing how innovation in music creates new experiences — and how we can do the same for our customers.

Now that the dust has settled on the launch of the Apple iPhone 4S, I thought I would add my thoughts about the launch.  If you haven’t checked it out already the blog has a great post comparing the new iPhone 4S to the iPhone 4.

I’ll admit it.  I was disappointed at first.  Having attended the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference this past summer and knowing all of the wonderful things that were going into the iOS 5 release, I naturally expected an iPhone 5 to go with it.  The device would have had pretty much everything you saw yesterday – the new processor, a better camera, the enhanced voice technology provided by the Siri acquisition – but it also would have supported the 4G standard deployed by Verizon already and rolling out with AT&T.  I’m in love with 4G.  The network speeds are astounding, and that can deliver an amazing experience to the user.  I probably could have lived without the near field communication (NFC) payment technology in the product, as I think there are still some challenges that need to be worked out, but I would not have been surprised to see Apple announce something along those lines anyway.

In retrospect though, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to have left out the 4G capability in this release.  While there are a couple other markets in the world (like Sweden) where 4G is deployed, most of the world is not there yet.  In fact, in places like the United Kingdom, the spectrum has yet to be auctioned; in fact, Ofcom (the equivalent to the FCC in the United States) is suggesting that it will likely be 2013 before 4G services at the earliest.  Thus, the only real usage in a meaningful way would have been in the United States.

In addition, as an old Motorola phone guy myself, there is no question that it would have increased the overall program risk to add yet another technology protocol to the phone for limited return.  In 2003, Motorola was a world leader in figuring how to cram 3G, 2.5G, 2G, Bluetooth, Wifi, and GPS into a smartphone device.  That is no small feat, as the phone designer has to figure out how to get all of those antennas in the phone to work properly.  They also had a customer in Hutchison Whampoa (the operator known in Europe and Asia as “3”) who had committed significant dollars to ensure the existence of 3G products at their launch.  Beyond that though, there were no other operators that were prepared for such a product.  I think Apple is following a very intelligent path of ensuring there is market readiness for features and functionality it introduces rather than trying to force fit new technologies ahead of their time.

What I would definitely say about the new release is that I can’t wait to see (more…)

Please note this article is applicable to the investigations workforce as well as the legal workforce.

With over 5 billion mobile phones currently in use around the world, it is not a question of “if you should” be using mobile but rather “how you should” be using mobile.  According to a May 2011 survey taken by Nielsen, nearly 40 percent of mobile users in the United States have a smartphone and of those who recently purchased a phone in the last 3 months, 55% reported purchasing a smartphone.  Tablet computers such as the iPad are also gaining in popularity; in fact, the iPad now accounts for 1% of TOTAL worldwide Internet web traffic and 2.1% of the web traffic in the United States.

So if you’re ready to take the plunge in a big way, how do you decide where to begin?  There are many mobile operating systems to choose from including iOS from Apple, Android from Google, Java from RIM (Blackberry), and Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft.  This article looks at the top ten key issues to consider before you begin.

 

1.  Connection Speeds

Most of the United States now offers third generation (3G) mobile speeds which enable the user to upload content at around 300-500 kilobits per second and download content at speeds around 500 kilobits per second to around 1.5 megabits per second.  This has become very important given the amount of video being consumed by users.  Some of the newest devices use the new fourth generation (4G) mobile connectivity capability provided by Verizon.  A 4G phone (when in a coverage area for 4G services) delivers web pages and content very quickly; in fact, it is not uncommon to see download speeds greater than 8 megabits per second and upload speeds greater than 2 or 3 megabits per second.

2. Devices

Without question, the devices, which attract the most attention today, come from Apple:  the iPhone and the iPad/iPad2.  Apple has the strongest application portfolio with over 300,000 apps in total available for the iPhone and over 60,000 for the iPad.  Apple has a very rigorous testing policy for applications and has had very little problems with applications behaving in ways they should not.  The device is very easy to set up for Microsoft Exchange corporate email access and also has native virtual private network (VPN) support built in.  This year Apple began providing iPhone and iPad product on the Verizon network in addition to AT&T.  Apple devices also support WiFi connectivity as well as third generation (3G) network speeds.

(more…)

Thomson Reuters recently announced an exciting new partnership with the Apps For Good project in London, where the company will be sponsoring three local schools:  St. Matthew Academy in Blackheath, Central Foundation Girls’ School in Tower Hamlets, London, and the Bridge Academy in Hammersmith.  Thomson Reuters will be enabling the Apps For Good program to provide training and technology to all three schools so that children can learn to develop their own mobile applications on the Android platform.

The program also provides a tremendous way for our employees to engage with the students directly as mentors and role models, helping the students come up with a proposition, learn how to market and develop the idea, and then prepare for a “Dragon’s Den” type presentation at the end of the school term.

The Apps For Good program specifically works with schools that are in economically challenged areas.  I had the opportunity to tour St. Matthew Academy and meet many of the students, and I genuinely could not stop smiling throughout the 2 hour visit.  The kids are bright, eloquent, and excited about their future and the things that they are doing.  One student writes a fashion blog, and because of her work, was invited to take part in London’s Fashion Week.  You can go to this site to check it out.

I also had the chance to take part in the Skills Showcase event at the Central Foundation Girls’ School – a wonderful event where David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, delivered the keynote address.  The girls at this school have created some terrific apps.  One is called “Buzzer Buddies,” and it is an alarm that has a great fallback mechanism.  If you hit the snooze button twice, your “guardian angel” is alerted and will give you a phone call to make sure you wake up!  Another app called “Transit” helps teachers communicate with Bengali parents who have difficulty with English.  What is quite remarkable is the impact that this program is having on the students; one said that there was no way she would have been interested in technology as a career until this program came along.  See below for two screenshots of the Transit app. (more…)