Welcome to The Systematic Summary, Systematic’s weekly roundup of the news, books, and interviews that will make you a more informed business technology professional. Every week, I’ll be bringing together the best media for IT and BT leaders to consume in one, easy-to-digest list. Let’s get started.
Catch up on this week’s news:
Clare Martorana was announced as the next federal CIO as well as the administrator of the Office of Electronic Government at the Office of Management and Budget.
Clare Martorana was named the next federal CIO by the Biden administration last Tuesday. She is credited for improving the digital experience for both American citizens as well as government workers, and is coming most recently from her post as CIO of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In her new role, Martorana will focus on “bolstering the federal government’s digital technology efforts,” according to CIO Dive. Before starting her public service career at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a member of the U.S. Digital Service team, Martorana was the president of the consumer division at Everyday Health and Senior Vice President and General Manager and editor-at-large at WebMD.
Artist Beeple sold a purely-digital NFT at Christie’s for a record-breaking price of $69.3 million, the third-highest price for a work of art sold by a living artist.
Beeple (whose real name is Mike Winkelmann) is now the third-most expensive living artist behind Jeff Koons and David Hockney after selling an NFT at Christie’s this week. The sale is not only an indicator that the market for digital art is growing according to Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile, co-founder of the Gallery of Crypto Art, but also a result of the increasing value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. So what are NFTs? Art market reporter Benjamin Sutton suggests that “as with so many things on the internet, NFTs may be best explained with cats.” A virtual marketplace called CryptoKitties launched in 2017 that used blockchain technology to make the digital cats sold on the site into unique, traceable assets. “NFTs introduced scarcity to the market for digital assets,” continues Sutton, which is why NFTs are ripe to sell as works of art.
Dropbox is planning to acquire document sharing startup DocSend for $165 million with the plan to expand the services they offer in an increasingly remote-friendly world.
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston told TechCrunch in a recent interview, “Dropbox, DocSend, and HelloSign will be able to offer a full suite of selve-serve products to help our millions of customers manage the entire critical document workflows.” Houston and DocSend CEO Russ Heddleston aren’t strangers—Heddleston worked as an intern for DropBox in 2010, and the two have maintained a professional relationship since. DocSend won over users with its ability to attach more robust tracking to documents like pitch decks as well as its user-friendly, intuitive interface. The deal should wrap soon, and DocSend’s roughly 50 employees will join Dropbox then.
When companies are considering how to protect and store their data, there are two main avenues to consider: on-premises storage and cloud storage. Which avenue should you take?
Systematic Community Manager Mary Hodges dove into data security this week, evaluating two of the most common ways to store data. When determining whether to store your data on-premises or on the cloud, it’s important to evaluate your budget, how robust your company’s security protocols are, the time you have to implement your storage solution, and how important accessibility is to the success of your day-to-day storage needs.
Find some weekend reading:
Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes (2021)
Ian Leslie
New Statesman columnist Ian Leslie draws advice from the people who resolve conflict for a living (hostage negotiators, diplomats, relationship scientists, and the like) to bring together a manual on how to disagree productively.
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley (2018)
Antonio García Martínez
Antonio García Martínez pulls the curtain back on his former Silicon Valley colleagues in this incisive portrait of the evolution of social media and how it is shaping our future.
Feedback for The Systematic Summary: If there is something you’d like to see in next week’s roundup, email me at [email protected] with the subject line “The Systematic Summary.”
