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ECom-IComp Experts Address Series (2007-2008)
The ECom-IComp experts address series is designed primarily
to keep students and alumni of our programme up-to-date with the information
technology and electronic business trends around the world. We invite our
eminent overseas instructors to give the public address, which forms an
important part of the learning process, and also facilitates our programme
participants to network with local industry and business leaders. Instructors
can also present unusual topics they are passionate about or which they think
deserve more public attention.
Professor Denis Lee
Professor of Computing Information Systems, Suffolk University
Visiting Professor, Department of Computer Science, HKU |
8 August 2008 (Friday)
7pm - 8pm
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Understanding user needs and requirements for the effective design of an
information system is a far more complex challenge than we generally
recognize. Much of the difficulties may be due to cognitive biases,
including functional fixedness by both users and developers. In this
seminar, I will examine the sources of these biases and explain why
these challenges are particularly daunting for achieving integrated
information systems, especially in China today. |
| Jointly organized by The MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & HKU SPACE |
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See Biography |
Prof. Alan Montgomery
Associate Professor of Marketing at the Tepper School of Business,
Carnegie Mellon University
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, HKU |
14 July 2008 (Monday)
7pm - 8pm
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Many consumers begin their purchase process at search engines such as
Google, Yahoo, or MSN instead of traditional retailers. Consumers rely
upon the search results provided by these engines along with paid
advertising to make decisions about what sites to visit and subsequently
which products to purchase. In this study we propose a statistical model
that predicts consumer search and the probability of purchase using
clickstream data collected from an online sample of consumers. A
challenge in analyzing this data is the textual nature of the search
strings and the scarcity of many search terms. We also consider how
consumers will search based upon the specificity of the search term.
This model is cast in the context of a hierarchical Bayesian model to
overcome the limited information for many search strings and consumers.
We illustrate how this model can be used to aid advertisers in making
decisions about how much to bid, what phrase to bid upon, and the
appropriate landing page for the consumer once they enter the web site. |
| Jointly organized by The MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & HKU SPACE |
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See Biography |
Prof. Norman Sadeh
Director, Mobile Commerce Lab, Carnegie Mellon University
Director, e-Supply Chain Management Lab, Carnegie Mellon University
Co-Director, COS PhD Program, Carnegie Mellon University
Visiting Professor, Department of Computer Science, HKU |
27 May (Tuesday)
7:00pm - 8:00pm
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Slides [
pdf file ]
Audio [ Windows Media Player ]
Video [ Windows Media
Player ] |
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Room 610, 6/F, United Centre, Admiralty |
The term "phishing" refers to cyber-attacks where someone masquerades as
a legitimate entity (e.g. website, colleague) to fraudulently obtain
sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, or
critical intellectual property. It is a form of social engineering that
takes advantage of people's general gullibility as well as lack of
understanding of how email, the Web and other technologies really work -
what is legitimate and what can easily be spoofed. Today phishing comes
in the form of fraudulent emails, websites, instant messages or even
VoIP calls. The past several years have seen a steady rise in attacks,
with direct financial losses estimated to range between $350m and $3b
per year. But for corporations and government organizations this is just
the tip of the iceberg, as more targeted (aka "spear phishing") attacks
can lead to potentially devastating breaches.
While in principle technologies such as PKI could help eliminate
phishing, evidence suggests that this will not happen anytime soon.
Instead, what is required is a multi-pronged approach that combines
effective filtering techniques with new approaches to training users to
recognize these attacks. In this presentation, several particularly
promising techniques will be presented that have been developed and
piloted at Carnegie Mellon University over the past several years in the
context of what is probably the largest US research effort in this area.
This is joint work by the presenter and several of his colleagues at
Carnegie Mellon University, including Lorrie Cranor, Jason Hong,
Alessandro Acquisti, Julie Downs, Sven Dietrich, Anthony Tomasic and a
number of graduate students. |
| Jointly organized by the MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & HKU SPACE. |
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See Biography |
Mr. Peter Looms
Multimedia Senior Consultant, Danish Broadcasting Corporation |
11 April (Friday)
7:00pm - 8:00pm
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Slides [
ppt slides ]
Audio [ Windows Media Player ] |
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Room 608, 6/F, United Centre, Admiralty |
In recent years, various experts have forecast the imminent demise of
television. Claims are made about young people who no longer watch
television, the shift from watching broadcast TV to on-demand, the
ascendance of social media sites such as You Tube along with the decline
of television advertising as a sustainable business model. In addition
to all this, there is the mobile phone and alternatives to television on
what is becoming the most ubiquitous IT device on the planet.
In this address, the speaker will examine the evidence from markets
around the world, attempt to separate reality from hype and come up with
some conclusions about the future of television. |
| Jointly organized by the MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & HKU SPACE. |
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See Biography |
Professor Bebo White
Departmental Associate (Retired), Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
Stanford University
Adjunct Professor, University of San Francisco |
27 February (Wednesday)
7:00pm - 8:00pm
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Slides [
pdf file ]
Audio [ Windows Media Player ]
Video [ Windows Media
Player ] |
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Room 602, 6/F, United Centre, Admiralty |
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Wikipedia defines computational science (not computer science) as "the
field of study concerned with constructing mathematical models and
numerical solution techniques and using computers to analyze and solve
scientific and engineering problems." What this definition fails to
express is how computational science has become an integral component of
all scientific disciplines and how it promises to fundamentally change
the way in which science will be done in the future. The impact of
computational science can only be likened to how the execution of
scientific research was changed by the elaboration of the Scientific
Method. This lecture will describe the elements of computational science
and engineering and research methods that take advantage of these
elements. Case studies will be presented to illustrate applications of
these methods. |
| Jointly organized by the MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & HKU SPACE. |
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See Biography |
Professor Michael Shamos
Distinguished Career Professor, Institute for Software Research,
Carnegie Mellon University
Director, eBusiness MSIT degree program, Carnegie Mellon University
Director, Universal Library, Carnegie Mellon University
Visiting Professor, Department of Computer Science, HKU |
29 January (Tuesday)
5:15pm - 6:15pm
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Slides [
pdf file ]
Audio [ Windows Media Player ]
Video [ Windows Media
Player ] |
T5, 1/F
Meng Wah Complex
The University of Hong Kong |
Corporations need to innovate just to survive, but many corporations are
bad at innovation and by objective measure are getting worse.
Innovation, even when it occurs, is often not rewarded either by
increases in profit or in stock price. Some truly innovative
developments, such as the Iridium satellite phone network, have been
colossal and expensive failures.
We will look at situations in which innovation has paid off and those in
which it has merely provided inspiration to competitors. Surprisingly,
research shows that when innovation succeeds, it can produce huge
rewards (e.g. Google) or none at all (3M Corporation), but rarely yields
only moderate gains. We will explode some myths, particularly that of
the first mover advantage and the notion that encouraging
entrepreneurship within a company has any effect on innovation.
This talk argues that innovation is a manageable discipline through
which success can be made probable and expensive failure avoided by
applying straightforward but unforgiving Darwinian principles. |
| Jointly organized by the MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & Technology Transfer Office. |
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See Biography |
Dr. Renato Iannella
Principal Scientist, National ICT Australia (NICTA) Ltd |
15 November (Thursday)
7pm - 8pm
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Slides [
pdf file ]
Audio [ Windows Media Player ]
Video [ Windows Media
Player ] |
Room 608, 6/F
United Centre
Admiralty, HK |
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Web 2.0 has captured the mind and market-share of the Web Community.
What it is really undefined, but that has not stopped its rapid
adoption. This spreading of the "social web" is probably unstoppable and
moving to other sectors like "Security 2.0" and "Enterprise 2.0".
The presentation will try to deconstruct the Web 2.0 phenomena and looks
at the real challenges of the future web. One in which interoperability
of data, semantics, and policy will be the driving force. |
| Jointly organized by the MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & HKU SPACE. |
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See Biography |
Professor Roger Clarke
Principle, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd.
Visiting Professor, Info Science & Engineering, The Australian National
University
Visiting Professor, Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, University of New
South Wales |
25 October (Thursday)
7pm - 8pm
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Slides [
pdf file ]
Audio [
Windows Media Player ]
Video [ Windows Media
Player ] |
Room 608, 6/F
United Centre
Admiralty, HK |
From the very beginning of the first wave of Internet commerce in the
late 1990s, Internet payment mechanisms were a serious impediment to
adoption. Many approaches have been tried, but almost all payments
depend on credit cards - a scheme that was inherently flawed when it was
launched in 'meatspace' and sits very uncomfortably in the
fixed-connection / PC / wired era.
The current wave of eCommerce is mobile / handheld / wireless. People
expect to do everything quickly, simply and intuitively. It appears that
many categories of modern consumers have a cavalier attitude to risk
even when making payments, and particularly when making frequent
payments of relatively small sums of money.
This presentation highlights the risks that consumers face, and asks
whether the perception of riskiness will impede the adoption of
MCommerce. |
| Jointly organized by the MSc
(ECom&IComp) Programme Office & HKU SPACE. |
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See Biography |
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