I popped over to Vivek Ranadive's holiday event at the weekend. It seems as though the holiday festivities officially start with Vivek's early December bash at the very regal, black-tie optional party at the Canter Arts Center at Stanford University.

Vivek is CEO of Tibco, one of the first and most loyal sponsors of SVW. The least I can do is pop over once a year and eat Vivek's food and sample his wines (I offer such services to all of my sponsors and I encourage them to use them often. Sign up now...)

Vivek's book, "The Power to Predict," is due early in the new year It is the sequel to "The Power of Now" which laid out the competitive advantages of being a real-time corporation--having your IT systems run at the speed of your business--rather than in batch mode.

The Power to Predict discusses a concept that Vivek has been talking about for several years. It is the next stage: how corporations can respond in real-time to likely outcomes based on past data.

For example, the technology is being used by Harrah's Casinos to figure out how to improve customer satisfaction in real-time, such as offering free dinner show tickets to customers reaching their spending/losing limits.

Predictive technology is also becoming integral to IT architectures, especially in the brave new world of utility computing. Allocating computer and network resources in real-time is a big challenge.

However, if you can make use of predictive technologies, you can potentially be better prepared to respond to changing demands for IT within your organization..

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BTW, you should visit the Canter Arts Center, it has stunning art galleries and it is free.

The Canter Arts Center at Stanford University presents art in 24 galleries plus sculpture gardens, terraces, and courtyard. The Center's diverse collections span 4000 years and the world's cultures and number some 25,000 objects, including the largest collection of Rodin bronzes outside Paris. Nearly 100 contemporary sculptures sited outdoors throughout campus await your discovery. Presenting a wide range of important changing exhibitions, docent tours, lectures, gallery talks, symposia, and classes, the Canter Arts Center is a cultural hub for the community and a teaching resource for Stanford University. Learn what the Center offers and visit often. ADMISSION IS FREE.

http://ccva.stanford.edu/