The fair opened today with an official ceremony, attended by VIPs such as visiting writers, CEOs, and high-ranking staff of some of the companies present at the fair. There were flowers everywhere and children singing…as you can see from the first image below, Nancy McKinstry and Stacy Caywood were among those attending, as well as China CEO Shasha Chang and staff members (from left) Rose Wang, Douglas Xi, and Shirley Liu. Read further >

The Beijing International Book Fair kicks off tomorrow and Beijing is more abuzz than usual, filled with writers and publishers from all over the world. The Netherlands is the country of honor this year, so perhaps there’s even more Dutch folks here than in past years – my flight from Amsterdam to Beijing was like a who’s who list of famous Dutch writers. Read further >

SaaS has become a common delivery application in the accountant’s environment. In this post I will talk about some of the differences between SaaS systems that can help you when choosing which one to use. Read further >

Facebook has told pharmaceutical companies that as of August 15, they can no longer disable the comment feature on their Facebook pages. Although pharmaceutical brand pages will no longer be able to disable commenting on their posts, Facebook will, on a case by case basis, allow disabling of the commenting function on branded pages solely dedicated to a prescription drug. But pages that are focused on the companies themselves or that serve as disease- or patient-specific communities will have to be open to public comment. Read further >

Solvency II, which will be effective as of January 2013, is a set of new and stronger European Union-wide requirements for insurers. These new requirements on capital adequacy and risk management are meant to help protect policy holders and will reduce consumer loss or market disruption in insurance. The regulation has three portions or pillars that include quantitative requirements (regulatory reporting), disclosure, and transparency in communicating to shareholders and enterprise risk management (ERM). Read further >

When I hear the term “Big Data”, I think of an omniscient Google or Facebook able to accurately forecast what products or services are best suited for me at an increasingly particular point in time and place (i.e. Why am I seeing ads for Coldplay’s Austin, Texas show next month on my Facebook account? And for that matter, how did Facebook know that I’m going to be in Austin, Texas next month and that I like Coldplay?). Improved prospecting and marketing are one of the many commercial applications of Big Data. But that’s just a small part of what Big Data is about and every area that touches information technology and human behavior will ultimately be affected in some way. Read further >

Recently, I stumbled upon a survey of a German media agency about the relationship between the usage of browsers and conversion rates. As may have been anticipated by some, the fact that different users are sticking to certain browser types seems to have a real impact on internet-based sales. Read further >

Legal research has passed the crossroads of print or digital and is heading for the next: facts or concepts. But are search engines getting too “easy” to use? Is the “dumbing down” of legal search engines a real threat to the quality of legal research? Read further >

With an ever-changing technology environment, for example, the shift to cloud computing and mobile/tablet devices, providers of content, workflow, and software solutions for tax, legal, & regulatory professionals increasingly look for ways to innovate. In an earlier post, I noted the need to use contextual design techniques because there is no longer a standard “template” for customers’ workflows. An essential part of contextual design (I reread the book this past weekend) is contextual inquiry. Contextual inquiry, of course, focuses on understanding the customer’s context – the physical environment, the flow of work, and many other factors that customers cannot articulate but which can be learned only through direct observation. Again, the focus is on understanding customers’ pain points in workflows. Read further >

Screening for potential drug-drug interactions is an important component of patient safety. In a previous post I commented on a study that looked at the ability for drug-drug interaction software to detect clinically significant interactions. I also remarked that it’s important for this type of software to minimize the number of minor interactions displayed; otherwise, providers may start to ignore all of the alerts. The challenge of course is to try to discern which alerts are signal and which are noise. Read further >