View source for Catherine Spence

Hi, I’m Cathy Spence, an Enterprise Architect in Intel’s IT Research & Technology Development group.  My job is to pioneer new methods and tools that Intel could use to run its business.  The focus of my research is workforce technologies, collaboration and productivity.  A large portion of my time over the past year has been spent sponsoring studies in cloud computing, Software as a Service (SaaS) and streaming enterprise software.

On a personal note, I’m married with a teenage daughter and black lab dog.  We live an hour north of Boston in Southern New Hampshire.  You’ll get to meet my daughter since she will be joining me in Santa Fe for the second half of June.  In all my free time, I’m a big Red Sox fan.


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'''What are your main interests?'''

I’m attending CSSS with the goal of practical application of complex systems theory to corporate business problems, systems and organizations.  This includes what can be applied now and determining research areas for future use.

From a technology standpoint, the key areas I’m interested in are as follows:

*Visualization & Modeling
**Recognizing patterns and structures
**Using images to understanding dynamics
**Agent-based modeling
**Create insight and foresight, beyond forecasting

*Social Media & Social Networking
**Collective intelligence
**New sources of real time data

*Data Mining & Machine Learning
**Anomaly detection with large data sets
**Intelligent agents and desktop assistants

*Smart Environment – Proactive/Predictive Enterprise
**Contextual examination of workloads in the environment
**Create and expose real time information via sensors, mobile social apps, virtualization, and more

From a social standpoint, we are also looking at the Boeing command and control model as applied to Intel IT organizational structure.


'''What sorts of expertise can you bring to the group?'''

I can contribute real life business scenarios based on over 20 years experience in real time application development including communications, computer telephony, factory automation and software.  My background is engineering, computer science and software engineering. I’ve worked in product development, consulting, management and IT.  Nowadays, I spend more time on requirements, solution architecture, creative problem solving, strategic planning and controlled experimentation.


'''What do you hope to get out of the CSSS?'''

It will be great to connect with others who have similar interests and enthusiasm for complex systems.  I’m looking forward to immersing myself in dynamics, network topics, social science modeling, evolutionary computing, and some of the math.  I’m least interested in the biology applications but will keep an open mind.   While learning, I’d like to work on a project specific to Intel, if I can persuade a few of you to work with me.


'''Do you have any possible projects in mind for the CSSS?'''

For the past few weeks I’ve been collecting project ideas.  Here are the top two:

#Scheduling of manufacturing tool requests.  The goal is to develop a solution for mapping technicians to tools for maintenance, while maximizing product lot throughput.  There are many variables changing constantly that impact the schedule.  The current process is very manual.  
#Rationalization of client computing models in enterprise architecture.  There used to be only two computing models: thick and thin client computing.  Now there are more than 10 emerging choices.  How can we visualize the environment to the right level of detail and see the impact of selecting specific computing models?  The goal is to determine the “what if” ripple effects of architectural decisions over the spectrum of client platforms.  Today there is no process to perform this analysis.