Case Study – Week 01 / Management Information Systems

The New York Times and Boston Scientific:

Almost everybody has a theory about how thinking among his 120-person team with twice-
to save the U.S. newspaper industry. The only annual innovation contests. Winners receive
consensus, it seems, is that it needs to change cash, recognition, and the resources to turn their
fundamentally or it could all but disappear. At ideas into reality. Typical projects are measured
The New York Times, tough times have elevated against criteria like revenue potential or
IT-enabled innovation to the top of the agenda. journalistic value, but R&D projects aren’t.
“Since we build software, there’s no huge capital
A research and development group,
investment up front,” Frons says, “which allows
created in 2006, operates as a shared service
us to experiment. The emphasis is on rapid
across nearly two dozen newspapers, a radio
development.”
station, and more than 50 Web sites. “Our role is
to accelerate our entry onto new platforms by Times Widgets, a widget-making platform,
identifying opportunities, conceptualizing, and was a contest winner, as was the recently
prototyping ideas,” explains Michael Zimbalist, launched Times Wire, a near real-time
the company’s vice president of R&D. customizable interface for online content.
“We’re trying to solve specific problems and
Zimbalist’s staff of 12 includes experts in
think about where the business is going,” Frons
rapid prototyping, specialists in areas like mobile
says. Frons is focused on enhancing revenue,
or cloud computing, and data miners who probe
cutting costs, and increasing efficiency through
Web site data for insight into what visitors do.
process improvements and automation.
They work within a common framework based
on idea generation, development, and diffusion The New York Times has launched a cool
throughout the business. Recent projects interactive map that shows the most popular
included prototypes for new display ad concepts, Netflix rentals across 12 U.S. metropolitan areas:
as well as BlackBerry applications for New York, San Francisco/Bay Area, Boston,
[Link] and the expert site [Link]. The Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, Seattle,
team’s work is intended to supplement and Minneapolis, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami.
support innovation taking place within the If you’re a Netflix junkie and a closet Twilight fan
business units. For example, the team is (and you live in a major U.S. city), your rental
prototyping E-Ink, an emerging display habits are now on display. To create the map,
technology that some business units can’t spare The New York Times partnered with Netflix. The
the resources to investigate. map is a graphical database of the top 100 most-
rented Netflix films of 2009 laid on top of maps.
At [Link], CTO of Digital Operations
With it, you can graphically explore top 2009
Marc Frons’s design and product development
Netflix movies based on three criteria: films that
group worked with Zimbalist’s team and Adobe
were hated/loved by critics, an alphabetical list,
developers on the Times Reader 2.0
and most rented. For example, select most
application—the next generation, onscreen
rented and when you mouse-over a ZIP code, a
reading system it developed on the Adobe AIR
window pops up that shows you what the top
platform. Frons further encourages forward
Netflix rentals are for that specific region.

O’Brien and Marakas, Introduction to Information Systems, Sixteenth Edition, New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2013 - Chapter 1 1
Case Study – Week 01 / Management Information Systems

Some trends are not surprising: the most the way you need to be for a new business model
Netflixed movie of 2009 was The Curious Case of to unfold is a very difficult thing to do.”
Benjamin Button, though Slumdog Millionaire
While The New York Times is focused on
and Twilight were both in the top ten. Milk, the
experimenting with a number of different
story of San Francisco activist Harvey Milk, was
initiatives, Boston Scientific faces a much
popular in San Francisco and other city centers,
different challenge: how to foster innovation
but not so much in the suburbs of southern cities
without risking the disclosure and leakage of
(such as Dallas and Atlanta). Mad Men, the
very valuable intellectual property. And the
1960s-set drama about advertising execs, was
compny has turned to technology to help find
hot in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, but not
the right mix of access and security.
in any other major cities (it barely got mention in
Denver and Dallas, and not at all in Miami). Boston Scientific wants to tear down
barriers that prevent product developers from
The map does show some interesting
accessing the research that went into its
trends: Big blockbusters were not as popular in
successful medical devices so that they can
city centers (Wanted and Transformers: Revenge
create new products faster. But making data too
of the Fallen, barely made a splash in the city
easily accessible could open the way to theft of
centers of Manhattan and San Francisco),
information potentially worth millions or billions
although this could be due to the fact that a lot
of dollars. It’s a classiccorporate data privacy
of people see blockbusters in movie theaters.
problem. “The more info you give knowledge
Last Chance Harvey, a romantic comedy starring
workers, the more effective they can be in
Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, was
creating a lot of value for the company,” says
enjoyed in wealthier suburbs (such as Scarsdale),
Boris Evelson, a principal analyst at Forrester.
but not in city centers (such as Manhattan). Tyler
“This creates disclosure risks—that someone’s
Perry’s movies (Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail
going to walk away with the data and give it to a
and Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys) were
competitor.”
popular in predominantly black neighborhoods.
This tension compels the $8 billion
Much of what has come down the
company to seek out software that allows the
innovation pike thus far at The New York Times
broader engineering community to share
can be classified as process or product
knowledge while managing access to product
innovation. Typically, a healthy and growing
development data, says Jude Currier,
company should be content with focusing 90 to
cardiovascular knowledge management and
95 percent of its innovation dollars on such core
innovation practices lead at Boston Scientific.
business innovation and 5 percent or 10 percent
“Active security is the way to address this
on new business models, says Mark Johnson,
problem,” Currier says. That is, regularly monitor
chairman of strategic innovation consultancy
who’s accessing what and adjust permissions as
Innosight. However, he adds, “The newspaper
business conditions change.
industry is in so much trouble that business
model innovation is more important than ever.” Keeping the pipeline of new stents,
pacemakers, and catheters fresh is especially
Now is a good—and bad—time for
important because heart- related items account
fostering such innovation. “You’ve got the
for 80 percent of Boston Scientific’s sales. Over
leadership’s attention you need,” says Johnson.
the past few years, engineers have been focused
“But it’s harder in the sense that there’s an
on quality system improvements, Currier says.
urgency to fix the financials, and being patient in

O’Brien and Marakas, Introduction to Information Systems, Sixteenth Edition, New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2013 - Chapter 1 2
Case Study – Week 01 / Management Information Systems

Boston Scientific had inherited regulatory their feasibility. The goal is to have any engineer
problems from acquisitions it made during that access any other’s research. “The people in the
time. Now that those situations have been trenches can’t wait for that day to arrive,” he
addressed, the company is ready to reinvigorate says.
internal innovation.
Although the goal is more openness, not
Boston Scientific is piloting Invention all data stays open forever. For example, as a
Machine’s Goldfire software, which, Currier says, project gets closer to the patent application
provides the right mix of openness and security stage, access to the data about it is clipped to
for data. Before, Boston Scientific’s product fewer people, Currier says.
developers worked in silos with limited access to
He adds that since installing Goldfire,
research by colleagues on different product
patent applications are up compared to similar
lines. Information was so locked down that even
engineering groups that do not use the Goldfire
if scientists found something useful from a past
tool. “We have had to educate people that we
project, they often didn’t have access to it.
aren’t throwing security out the window but
“We’re changing that,” Currier says.
making valuable knowledge available to the
Goldfire makes an automated workflow organization,” he says.
out of such tasks as analyzing markets and
SOURCE: Stephanie Overby, “Rapid Prototyping Provides
milking a company’s intellectual property. It Innovation that Fits at The New York Times, ” [Link], June
combines internal company data with 24, 2009; Sarah Jacobson, “Netflix Map Shows What’s Hot
information from public sources—such as in Your Neighborhood,” [Link] , January 11, 2010;
federal government databases. Researchers can and Kim S. Nash, “Innovation: How Boston Scientific Shares
Data Securely to Foster Product Development,” [Link] ,
use the software to find connections among November 23, 2009.
different sources—for instance, by highlighting
similar ideas. Engineers can use such analysis to
get ideas for new products and begin to study

Questions
1. As stated in the case, The New York Times chose to deploy their innovation support group as a
shared service across business units. What do you think this means? What are the advantages of
choosing this approach? Are there any disadvantages?
2. Boston Scientific faced the challenge of balancing openness and sharing with security and the
needfor restricting access to information. How did the use of technology allow the company to
achieve both objectives at the same time? What kind of cultural changes were required for this
to be possible? Are these more important than the technologyrelated issues? Develop a few
examples to justify your answer.
3. The video rental map developed by The New York Times and Netflix graphically displays movie
popularity across neighborhoods from major U.S. cities. How would Netflix use this information
to improve its business? Could other companies also take advantage of these data? How? Provide
some examples.

O’Brien and Marakas, Introduction to Information Systems, Sixteenth Edition, New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2013 - Chapter 1 3