Future Banking Blog

Avatars are having an increasing impact on our lives. It seems we can hardly go anywhere without being involved with an avatar. When we bought a Wii for Christmas last year the first part of setting up the Wii is to create an avatar (Mii). Now Microsoft is working to expand the Xbox 360 from an audience of shooter [...]

What’s the typical career choice for a Poly Sci/French major-the U.N.? The U.S. State Department? Well, for me it was banking. Not the typical choice, but one that has proven to be extremely rewarding for me over the last 14 years. I’ve had the opportunity to learn everything from operations, marketing, project management, and now [...]

With the rise of the Social Networks, Social TV is now mentioned everywhere. But what is it? TV has always been a social experience, with people gathered around the TV set in families, groups of friends and neighbors, and even whole villages. Major events that include sports like the Olympics and the Super Bowl, and [...]

The MIT Media Lab builds things quickly, and makes them just functional enough so that they can be used for experimentation. “Build first, ask questions later” is not the typical, well-thought out design for conducting research, but it’s an effective method when fast iteration is key to the process. In fact, this approach is similar [...]

I recently spent the day at MediaLabs to understand how Javelin’s client Bank of America is experimenting to find the next series of financial services breakthroughs, and came away stricken with all the possibilities. While Javelin’s research is all about taking careful aim at a particular problem or opportunity, the MediaLabs approach is something that [...]

Google recently released its Chrome web browser…why?  Does the world need another browser war? Did consumers not have enough choices with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera?  There are many, many analyses on the web (here, here and here). Here are two different views: 
First, convergence. The iPhone joined mobile phone capability with a full Safari browser while most [...]

The traditional song for ringing in the New Year in almost every English speaking country in the world is Auld Lang Syne. It is generally credited to Robert Burns, but earlier versions precede his time. Burns combined a common Scottish folk song with his own lyrics to arrive at the version sung on New Year’s [...]