Passbook is one of the newest features of the iPhone. What many people were offput by standards today is that we rely too much on disposable tickets, and the like, such as when you go to the airport for a boarding pass, or a movie ticket. Apple strove to solve that with a new application that is bundled with the newest update: Passbook.

Passbook offers everything you need, especially when a ticket, coupon, or gift card is needed. When you first open the application you are greeted by a sampling of applications that support Passbook, and its features. To begin, install the particular application you want to use. For example, we will be going with the Starbucks application to satiate our coffee needs every morning, as we have a gift card to spend.

Open up the freshly downloaded application, and get ready to be blown away. Like most applications, especially when it has to do with airlines, or coffee, you are almost always required to sign up for a respective account. Don’t worry, it is easy. All you will be asked is to fill out your email, a password, and other miscellaneous information to identify you when you lose your password or others.

Once you have finished signing up, you’re ready to roll. It will prompt you to enter a gift card that you already own, or begin a digital gift card. If you don’t have a gift card, you can start a digital gift card (or, as many may call it: a prepaid card), and pay for your coffee in a fast, and efficient way. Just tap on “Tap to Pay” when you are ready to pay, and tap again after you have paid. It’s really that easy.

One of the most significant developments of mankind has been the art of writing. The earliest type of writing was in the form of graffiti and paintings on rocks and walls of caves. The first people who engaged in writing are reported to have been Sumerians and the Egyptians around 3500-3200 BC.[i] Early writing of this type was in the form of cuneiform and hieroglyphics. After that, writing emerged in different styles and form per the different societies and differences in expression.

Words are magical. They have preserved records of civilizations. They express desires and dreams and thoughts. But why write at all? What was or is the motive for writing? People write for different reasons. Some write because they have something to say; something to share with others, to inform. Others write to share their feelings.

George Orwell claimed there are four main reasons why people write as depicted below:

·         Sheer Egoism: According to this concept, people write because they want to be talked about; they want to reveal their cleverness. People who are motivated by sheer egoism desire to be counted among the top crust of humanity such as scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers and successful businessmen who are always putting their thoughts in print.

Like me, I believe most people go about their business never to give a serious thought about their assumed private correspondence when using Gmail to email friends, colleagues and business associates.  As it turns out, your daily banter may not be so private after all.  A recent article in Fortune Magazine, “Judge Rejects Google Deal Over Email Scanning” caught my attention and an immediate thought dominated my curiosity…Google email and scanning scam.  

In essence, the article describes Googles’ agreement to change the way it scans incoming messages so that it no longer reads emails while they are in transit, but only when they are in someone's inbox! So, what exactly does that mean? Judge Koh, a San Francisco federal judge, said she's not so sure about that. Her ruling claims the settlement does not provide an adequate technical explanation of Google's workaround, which involves scanning in-transit emails for security purposes, and then later parsing them for advertising data. The judge also proposed a legal settlement to pay $2.2 million to lawyers, but nothing to consumers.

My interest in this story is not so much about the proposed settlements or the specific details about how Google or any of the web giants settle claims based on vague legal language. It is however, more about the naiveté of myself and perhaps many others that never question how the email scanning process really works. I wonder, do most of us really care that Gmail uses contents of our mail to display targeted ads?

Companies have been collecting and analyzing data forever, pretty much.” So what’s really new here? What’s driving the data-analytics revolution and what does it mean for those that choose to postpone or ignore the pivotal role big-data is currently having on productivity and competition globally?

General Electric chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt explains it best when stating that “industrial companies are now in the information business—whether they like it or not.”  Likewise, digital data is now everywhere, it’s in every industry, in every economy, in every organization and according to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), this topic might once have concerned only a few data geeks, but big data is now relevant for leaders across every sector as well as consumers of products and services.

In light of the new data-driven global landscape and rapid technological advances, the question for senior leaders in companies now is how to integrate new capabilities into their operations and strategies—and position themselves globally where analytics can influence entire industries. An interesting discussion with six of theses senior leaders is covered in MGI’s article, “How companies are using big data and analytics,” providing us with a glimpse into a real-time decision making processes.