Dining this week in DC with chieftans of the corporate communications industry, I traded notes with PR guru, Bill Nielsen.  "Have you read the Journal story on IBM's Jeopardy machine?" he asked.  I confessed I had not.  "It's called Watson, after after IBM's founder.  Reminds me of what you're doing."

Nielsen and other leaders of the Arthur W. Page Society have been on the pointy end of this blog, so I was impressed that Bill was even shaking my hand.  To his credit, he'd seen our announcement on the Playmaker Collaboration Tool, and he got it.  Naturally, he ran a play of his own.  Was it a collaborative Challenge from this retired J&J executive, a celebrated specialist of the win-win?  Or was it a veiled Bait, a savvy counterplay to put me in my place?  You choose.

Whatever the strategy, Nielsen's point was fully transparent:  Natural language and machine learning technology is where the Playmaker system needs to go.  Imagine a strategy game the likes of Jeopardy with the likes of Watson playing it:

• For 10 points, this strategy helped BP position U.S. President Barack Obama as a co-equal in the Gulf oil spill blame game.  Ding.  What is the Red Herring?  Correct!

• For 20 points, this play was run by Obama operatives to expose BP CEO Tony Hayward and his affinity for clean-water yacht racing.  Ding.  What is the Call Out play?  Correct again!

• For 30 points, this play is a likely candidate for Obama supporters to run and keep BP in the media hotseat.  Ding.  What is the Filter?  We have a winner!

Now that's a system that could change the game.  Even Bill will agree.

Photo credit: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/16/magazine/watson-trivia-game.html

Posted by Alan Kelly