Tim's Thoughts

Teaching API workflow integration using Tray.io

TimOlsen — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 20:52:45 +0000

I’ve been watching a great tool for integrating services through a visual workflow editor develop over the past 2-3 years. You have likely heard of Zapier, and IFTTT – well now, meet Tray.io.

As a professor, the topic I enjoy teaching the most is how to use APIs. Using APIs for the first time is [...]

2013: The year of uptick in enterprise crowdsourcing?

TimOlsen — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:30:08 +0000

Those who work with IT are accustomed to hearing about outsourcing arrangements and cloud computing. Put these concepts together and you get what has been coined the “human cloud.” The Human Cloud is a sourcing ecosystem that engages a pool of online workers, or suppliers, that can be tapped on-demand to provide a wide range [...]

Internet Trends 2012

TimOlsen — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:43:59 +0000

This morning Mary Meeker presented this insightful and encompassing slide deck at All Things Digital: KPCB Internet Trends 2012

Our world is changing quickly! The ‘re-imagining’ slides are indicative of this. There also seems to be theme of convenience in entertainment on demand from a device that is always with you. How much of this [...]

VBA in the cloud = google apps script

TimOlsen — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:22:47 +0000

Perhaps the most technical thing that all MBA students learn, or should learn is using VBA to automate excel and word. Gove Allen at BYU teaches a fantastic class which does just that, take a look at the creative projects his students have recently completed: Custom ‘mail merge’ for sending SMS messages, importing data into [...]

There’s a webservice for that!

TimOlsen — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:11:01 +0000

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. -REM (lyrics)

One in seven people in the world feel that the end of the world is near, according to this Reuters poll. While I don’t know about the end of days, I’ll postulate that it is the end of the [...]

Putting the internet to work for you with IFTTT

TimOlsen — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:40:40 +0000

If you have not seen – ifttt.com (IFTTT = If This Then That)… check it out! It allows you to trigger tasks based events that happen all around the internet. Some of the nifty uses that my students came up with: (see more here).

Pitch a tent before dark. Notify via SMS fifteen minutes [...]

Workflow management: the key to cutting the gordian knot of paid crowdsourcing

TimOlsen — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:30:34 +0000

Just got back from CrowdConf 2011 where I shared the poster below. I met some great people and hope to describe some insights from the conference here soon.

Workflow management will cut the gordian knot of using cloud labor (labor-as-a-service) in everyday business settings. Two companies seem to have caught on to this. Cloudfactory has [...]

Hyperspecialization will transform the developing world

TimOlsen — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:25:07 +0000

Cross posted from G+. see post

I have recently posted about hyperspecialization (breaking work down into smaller pieces that can be done by several people in sequence or at once). Think of it as the vertical disintegration of the knowledge worker. This concept has profound implications. Two anecdotes coming from China and Nepal point to [...]

Teaching Business Process Management with RunMyProcess

TimOlsen — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:11:26 +0000

During my studies at Georgia State, I have had the privilege of developing and teaching courses on Business Process Management. When this comes up in conversation followed by blank stares. I typically explain it as model driven execution: Model your business process. (like the one to right, created by one of “my” students) Press a [...]

Focus of Academia: a set of problems

TimOlsen — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:07:52 +0000

Recently I was in New York for the BPM 2010, and Human Potential conferences and I took the opportunity to visit from friends at Columbia University.

While there, in Hamilton Hall, I saw a well written paragraph on the importance of problems and question in academia. Click the thumbnail to see a larger image.