Mood's In Control

Future Technology 2: Movie Reactions

2011-03-08T03:33:00.000-08:00

WALL-E

I loved this movie. It's the full range of emotion that makes it such great storytelling. The fairly small amount of actual dialogue from the robots just goes to show that with perfect cinematography such as this, dialogue isn't even very necessary.

The favorite scenes for me would be, the flight sequences, especially when Wall-E first meet Eve. She glances up to the departing spaceship and it's as if she's thinking "Okay the boss has gone, nobody's looking" and she spreads her wings and takes to the air. Beautifully done especially with Thomas Newman's musical composition. I could watch it over and over. Another is Wall-E and Eve's first proper exchange of dialogue, telling each other their names. Wall-E struggles with Eve's name "Eve-ahh". It’s absolutely charming.

What I like most about this movie is that it’s a cautionary tale about the wasteful nature of human beings. They want to show that by adopting everything that the television is selling us and through our desperation to have things faster and easier, we’ve taken all the work and thought out of life where we could somehow miss the entire world around us because we’re so focused in on ourselves and our gadgets. It does show a perception of the future what it would be like if we humans would not be cautious and would totally be dependent to technology.

It's hard to say where I'd rank it compared to the other animated movies that I like, Toy Story 1,2 and Finding Nemo. All of them are great pieces of story-telling, but I think Wall-E's simple tale of true love conquering all and saving the planet, as well as the stunningly realistic art, puts it in a class of its own. It certainly deserves to be an enduring classic.

EAGLE EYE

Eagle Eye movie is not that great for me. Since I love action thrillers, I am more particular when it comes to its story, its plot, and especially looking for its twists. It’s a loud, violent movie and your ears are bombarded to painful levels. In this case, action scenes made the movie get into life. The story to which an unknown woman with a sort of sexy voice that is omnipresent and extremely powerful that can control just about everything on the planet, traffic lights, neon signs, cell phones, train lines, TV screens, computers, and even automatic paper towel dispensers that is in a presence and existence of a supercomputer named ARIA who is making the phone calls and controlling the whole operation, with the objective being to assassinate the President and all those in the succession order is exaggerated.

A lot of reviewers are going to blame the twist, but I think the film survives it’s potentially silly twist admirably. The problem comes as the movie tries to deal with the consequences of that twist, and slowly begins to lose its way. It’s also not helped by the Eagle Eye’s ending, which suffers from a bad case of War of the Worlds syndrome.

Eagle Eye has its flaws, but you’re not going to care or notice them. It sets out to be fun, empty escapism and succeeds at it. Lastly, pay heed to the movie's warning: Technological advancements might indeed become a concern in the future, especially if they allow for greater mass production of duds like this one.

SURROGATES

This is a movie that had a lot more potential than it utilized. It certainly makes you question the nature of reality and the possibilities of advancing technology. It’s enjoyable. Surrogates did a good job of showing the difference between surrogates and humans. Surrogates were always perfect and beautiful. The actors do an incredible job of portraying being a lifelike machine controlled by a person rather than just a person. Surrogates are clearly surrogates when they are on screen, all the details of humanity tweaked just a little bit off skew.

Although technology can certainly enhance our lives and help defeat lethal diseases, I really don't believe that technology will extend our life spans beyond how long our "healthy" bodies would otherwise survive. Artificial intelligence will always improve as better algorithms are written. But that's all it really is, preprogrammed algorithms.

The movie was fun, not the best, but definitely worth seeing. The movie points out that an SUV flipping twice into an unsuspecting crowd would be reported as vandalism, not murder. In this sense, the number of murders would be drastically reduced. The character with "too many surrogates than logic would dictate" is perfectly justified within the movie.

Overall, it was a good movie if you’re the contemplative sort, or if you just enjoy action with a science fiction twist. Surrogates, for me, was probably one of the best movies in the year 2009. I highly recommend seeing it.

PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY

“Pirates of Silicon Valley” was a film based on a historical fact regarding on Steve Jobs and how Apple got started and also about Bill Gates and how Microsoft got started. The movie then proceeds to narrate the events that led to the development of the first Apple computer. Initially, I didn’t understand the concept of the film. It was later that I found out that this was sort of a documentary that’s why I forgive the rawness and the lack of effects. I can’t criticize the cinematography or the musical score because the movie was shown in 1999 and you can’t expect much when you’re trying to create a motion picture about a timeline that’s 3 decades earlier. There aren’t that many special effects needed because it is what it is, black and white. It’s an informative way of telling the story of the time when the big giants (Microsoft and Apple) started out small in their respective careers. Also, the movie is about hard work, and not to let money and power go to your head. Bill Gates worked hard and Steve Jobs worked hard. But when Apple became something, Steve Jobs let it go to his head. Eventually he was fired before he learned his lesson.

I was wondering at first why the title became as it is. At first I thought it’s only because it is about piracy in the computer world and Silicon Valley is a place in California where computers are built. Then I realized that the characters have an innocent way of displaying themselves but are actually deceptive and sneaky in most parts; all because of wanting to get that bigger piece of the computer pie. Hence, they became “pirates” in their own rights.

The movie was entertaining because of the humor and the insight of the revolution of the internet and computers. The movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley” was a very inspiring, forgiving, and a full of competitive views in terms of running a business. The characters (Steve Jobs and Bill Gates) in the movie are kind of people which can be able to admire and challenge anybody. In addition, the movie brought out the great minds of these great men behind the Apple Company and Microsoft Company which stimulated them to reach not just the threshold of their dreams but the climax of their success.

I, ROBOT

I, Robot is a smart, and a good action movie. I loved this action-comedy movie not only that it was starred by one of my favorite actors in Hollywood, Will Smith, but it really is a must see movie. Thinking that it was released in year 2004, imagining things about what the creation of robots can give, produce, and their benefits to us with high technological advancements and aspects applied is just amazing.

It's man against the machines. I, Robot is an intriguing movie that is a thinking person's action picture. Although it has plenty of humor, it expects to be taken quite seriously. It starts as a murder mystery and quickly blossoms from there into a movie with a lot on its mind. In addition to action and comedy, the film also explores some interesting ideas about robots and consciousness. It also explores the troubling idea that we can never be totally safe from our own mechanical creations.

This movie is entertaining, thanks mainly to a fine performance by Smith and solid supporting performances. Good character development and the great on-screen chemistry between Smith and Bridget Moynahan also give this movie a big boost. The film looks great, with excellent production design. The special effects are also excellent, with lots of gleaming robots created by teams led by visual effects supervisor John Andrew Berton Jr. and digital effects supervisor, Tyler Foell. Despite the abundance of blue screen effects, the live action and animation are well-integrated.

I, Robot may not break much new ground, but it's engaging enough in what it does to keep the viewer interested. Best of all, this is a story that's actually about something – the soul, free will, revolution. Very cool.

Future Technology 1: Why do we need to study Technology/gies?

2010-12-05T08:26:00.000-08:00

Man's pursuit of new knowledge, new information and new learning is endless for he is born with a brain to think in order to live in this very complicated world. God made man to rule over His kingdom as the highest- thinking- living thing alive which made him so much unique and different from all other animals on earth. For me, every move, every change, every discovery, and every advancement to improve his quality of life that man makes is considered technology. Every tool he used for his pursuit to learn to elevate and develop his life for the better is technology.

Now, why do we study technology/ies? It is but just very vital and is equally so important to study technology for it is what makes us alive in order to survive in this lifetime and forever-changing world. Every second, every minute, every hour a change in this world happens. And as a human being we have to live in the cadence of time. Man's intellect and intelligence to interact with what nature offers create new tools in order for man to continue living. Look how early men live from the way they fed, sheltered, and clothed themselves is now very far and different as much as what we are now. The simplicity and the complexity on how man lives today is but just called technology. So in order for man to survive and go on with the cadence and change of time, man has to keep studying what the future has to offer. Brilliant minds and geniuses discovered new things which gave rise to technology that aids man to live. From the simplest stones and rocks used to hunt and make for their food and now to the latest computer-aided and digital or just a press-buttons appliances and materials, from the simplest leaves to the branded clothes, from caves to mansions, from barefoot walking to the luxurious cars, from simple climbing to elevators, from horses to bullet trains and airplanes, from bows and arrows to highly sophisticated nuclear weapons, all these are but brought about by technologies. We really have to study technology in order for us to keep living and get paced with every change that this world offers. We can not just ignore any change for we are always part of it. We live in a fast changing world where technology is. Hence, in order for us to live and go with the cadence of time, we really have to study technology/ies.

SADi 11: Choosing or Defining Deployment Environment

2010-12-05T08:21:00.000-08:00

You were tasked by the IC-dean to evaluate the enrollment system of the university, list and briefly describe the characteristics that an anlayst(you) examines when choosing or defining deployment environment.

The choice of deployment environment is typically out of the hands of an individual developer. The environment an application is ultimately deployed in determined by factors such as corporate standards and large grained project requirements.

Application architecture designs exist as models, documents, and scenarios. However, applications must be deployed into a physical environment where infrastructure limitations may negate some of the architectural decisions. Therefore, you must consider the proposed deployment scenario and the infrastructure as part of your application design process.

When choosing or defining deployment environment, the following should be examined:

Choosing a Deployment Strategy
Choosing a deployment strategy requires design tradeoffs; for example, because of protocol or port restrictions, or specific deployment topologies in your target environment. Identify your deployment constraints early in the design phase to avoid surprises later. To help you avoid surprises, involve members of your network and infrastructure teams to help with this process.

When choosing a deployment strategy:
• Understand the target physical environment for deployment.
• Understand the architectural and design constraints based on the deployment environment.
• Understand the security and performance impacts of your deployment environment.

Consider Design Implications and Tradeoffs up Front
You need to consider aspects of scalability that may vary by application layer, tier, or type of data. Know your tradeoffs up front and know where you have flexibility and where you do not. Scaling up and then out with Web or application servers might not be the best approach. For example, although you can have an 8-processor server in this role, economics would probably drive you to a set of smaller servers instead of a few big ones. On the other hand, scaling up and then out might be the right approach for your database servers, depending on the role of the data and how the data is used. Apart from technical and performance considerations, you also need to take into account operational and management implications and related total cost of ownership (TCO) costs.

Stateless Components
If you have stateless components (for example, a Web front end with no in-process state and no stateful business components), this aspect of your design supports both scaling up and scaling out. Typically, you optimize the price and performance within the boundaries of the other constraints you may have. For example, 2-processor Web or application servers may be optimal when you evaluate price and performance compared with 4-processor servers; that is, four 2-processor servers may be better than two 4-processor servers. You also need to consider other constraints, such as the maximum number of servers you can have behind a particular load-balancing infrastructure. In general, there are no design tradeoffs if you adhere to a stateless design. You optimize price, performance, and manageability.

Network Infrastructure Security Considerations
Make sure that you understand the network structure provided by your target environment, and understand the baseline security requirements of the network in terms of filtering rules, port restrictions, supported protocols, and so on.

Manageability Considerations
The choices you make when deploying an application affect the capabilities for managing and monitoring the application. You should take into account the following recommendations:
• Deploy components of the application that are used by multiple consumers in a single central location to avoid duplication.
• Ensure that data is stored in a location where backup and restore facilities can access it.
• Components that rely on existing software or hardware (such as a proprietary network that can only be established from a particular computer) must be physically located on the same computer.
• Some libraries and adaptors cannot be deployed freely without incurring extra cost, or may be charged on a per-CPU basis; therefore, you should centralize these features.

Since I was tasked by the IC-dean to evaluate the enrollment system of the university, as an amateur analyst, I still need guidance on examining the right and productive way in choosing or defining the deployment environment of a specific system. But with the aid of the information I have read and gathered from the internet which I have mentioned above, it made possible for me to identify and describe the characteristics that an analyst should examine in defining the deployment environment and learned that setting up your deployment environment involves many decisions that affect everything from the number of physical servers to the type of pattern you choose. Each decision will affect how you set up your deployment environment.

Reference:
http://apparchguide.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Chapter%205%20-%20Deployment%20Patterns&referringTitle=Home

SADi 10: Evaluating DFD Quality

2010-12-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

With reference to assignments 8 and 9, what characteristics does an analyst(you) examine when evalauating DFD quality?

When developing any type of computer program, from a simple command-line game to an ornate operating system, one of the most important things a programmer can do is to create a data flow diagram. Though it may be a bit annoying, creating a data flow diagram will allow the programmer to create a program with minimal discomfort in programming the actual code and further increase the productivity of the programmer (or programming group).

The most important thing a data flow diagram does is to keep the program organized. Programmers use data flow diagrams to plan exactly how their new program is going to accomplish its intended purpose. While more simpler programs could probably be made without using a data flow diagram for organization, creating more complex ones, especially with groups of programmers, definitely requires the use of a data flow diagram to help keep the program on track.

Now, for evaluating DFD quality. A high-quality set of DFDs is readable, is internally consistent, and accurately represents system requirements. Accuracy of representation is determined primarily by consulting users and other knowledgeable stakeholders. A project team can ensure readability and internal consistency by applying a few simple rules to DFD construction. Analysts can apply these rules while developing the DFDs or during a separate quality check after preparing DFD drafts.

Minimizing Complexity
People have limited ability to manipulate complex information. If too much information is presented at once, people experience a phenomenon called information overload.Information overload is the difficulty in understanding that occurs when a reader receives too much information at one time. When information overload occurs, a person has difficulty in understanding. The key to avoiding information overload is to divide information into small and relatively independent subsets. Each subset should contain a comprehensible amount of information that people can examine and understand in isolation.

Ensuring Data Flow Consistency
An analyst can often detect errors and omissions in a set of DFDs by looking for specific types of inconsistency. Three common and easily identifiable consistency errors are as follows:
• Differences in data flow content between a process and its process decomposition
• Data outflows without corresponding data inflows
• Data inflows without corresponding outflows

A process decomposition shows the internal details of a higher-level process in a more detailed form. In most cases, the data content of flows to and from a process a one DFD level should be equivalent to the content of data flows to and from all processes in a decomposition DFD are said to be “in balance”.

Note the use of the term data content in the previous paragraph. Data flow names can vary among DFD levels from a number of reasons, including decomposition of one combined data flow into several smaller flows. Thus, the analyst must be careful to look at the components of data flows, not just data flow names. For this reason, detailed analysis of balancing should not be undertaken until data flows have been fully defined.

Balancing is the equivalence of data content between data flows entering and leaving a process and data flows entering and leaving a decomposition DFD.

Unbalanced DFDs may be acceptable when the imbalance is due to data flows that were ignored at the higher levels.

Another type of DFD inconsistency can occur between the data inflows and outflows of a single process or data store. By definition, a process transforms data inflows into data outflows. In logical DFD, data should not be needlessly passed into a process. The following consistency rules can be derived from these facts:
• All data that flows into a process must flow out of the process or be used to generate data that flows out of the process.
• All data that flows out of a process must have flowed into the process or have been generated from data that flowed into the process.

Those that I mentioned above are the characteristics that I examine when evaluating Data Flow Diagram. I based those factors from what I read and learned in Systems Analysis and Design In a Changing World, fifth edition book by John W. Satzinger since those that he mentioned there are the most important factors that an analyst should consider and examine when evaluating data flow diagram.

SADi 9: Data flow diagrams for USEP's pre-enrollment system

2010-12-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

Create at least 3 different types of Data flow diagram of USEP's pre-enrollment system.

Context Data Flow Diagram of Pre-Enrollment System

Level 0 Diagram

Exploded Diagram

SADi 8: Activity Diagram for USeP Pre-Enrollment System

2010-12-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

Using the same narrative as refelcted in your assignment 4, develop an activity diagram and a fully developed description for a use case.

USeP Pre-Enrollment System for New Applicants Activity Diagram

This activity diagram shows the workflow of a new applicant preparing to enroll to the university. The applicant first submit all application requirements to the UGTO officer and verifies it. If the requirements are complete, the UGTO officer releases payment slip which let the applicant pay for the USEPAT exam. The applicant then present the receipt back to the UGTO officer and have an application form to be filled up. The UGTO officer schedules the applicant and the applicant takes the exam. After the exam and results being released, applicant gets back to the UGTO to inquire for the result. If failed, the applicant must take the English Bridging Program. If passed, applicant may proceed to take medical test, next to college interview, comply final requirements, and is ready for advising.

USeP Pre-Enrollment System for Old Students Activity Diagram

This activity diagram shows the workflow of old students preparing to enroll again to the school. First, the student pays local and miscellaneous fees. Next, student presents passbook, signed clearance, and receipts to the adviser. Lastly, students gets PRF from the adviser.

SADi 7: Use Case Diagrams for USeP Pre-Enrollment System

2010-12-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

USeP Pre-Enrollment System for New Applicants Use Case

Consider USEP's pre-enrollment system, develop a use case diagram and write a brief use case description.

Submit application requirements description:
An applicant submits pertinent documents like filled-up application form, high school report card, ID picture. The UGTO officer validates document requirements if it is complete and filled-up properly. The UGTO officer gives admission test slip to the applicant for payment.

Pay test fee description:
The applicant pays the admission test fee. The cashier accepts the payment and renders a receipt to the applicant.

Take an admission test description:
The applicant verifies the date, time, place, name of building, room number of admission test. The applicant takes his scheduled exam. The exam officer assures that the examinee who is taking the exam is the exact person. The exam officer starts and ends the exam. The exam officer secures that the admission test is properly and smoothly conducted.

Go to college for interview description:
The applicant goes to college where he is suited for based on the result of his admission test. The faculty/dean interviews the applicant about the specific subjects regarding the course the applicant chooses.

Take medical exam description:
The applicant undergoes physical check-up in order to determine the health and fitness of mind and body. The medical officer gives a medical certificate if the applicant passes all medical tests.

Abide for subject bridging program description:
The applicant enrolls the subject bridging program like Math plus and English plus. The subject bridge program officer/instructor organizes and teaches this program.

USeP Pre-Enrollment System for Old Students Use Case

Complete Grades description:
The student gets the grades from the subjects he is enrolled for in previous semester through the scholastic passbook. The professor gives a passing or failing grade to a particular student and subject.

Signed Clearance Description:
The student settles all his obligations from different offices of the university through student clearance form. The Class Mayor, Academic Org. Officer, Local Council Officers, OCSC Officer, OSS Director, Bookkeeper, ROTC/CWTS Officer, Registrar, Class Adviser, College Dean sign their respective entries in the clearance form if the student is cleared from any obligations.

Pay Local and Miscellaneous Fees description:
The student pays local and miscellaneous fees like the headlight and the others to the student in-charge.

Advising description:
The student is now ready for advising and presents the passbook, signed clearance, and receipts to the adviser.

SADi 6: Go for the "Old" Information System or for the "New" Information System?

2010-06-03T00:02:00.000-07:00

Consider the following dialogue between a systems professional, John Juan, and a manager of a department targeted for a new information system, Peter Pedro:

Juan: The way to go about the analysis is to first examine the old system, such as reviewing key documents and observing the workers perform their tasks. Then we can determine which aspects are working well and which should be preserved.

Pedro: We have been through these types of projects before and what always ends up happening is that we do not get the new system we are promised; we get a modified version of the old system.

Juan: Well, I can assure you that will not happen this time. We just want a thorough understanding of what is working well and what isn’t.

Pedro: I would feel much more comfortable if we first started with a list of our requirements. We should spend some time up-front determining exactly what we want the system to do for my department. Then you systems people can come in and determine what portions to salvage if you wish. Just don’t constrain us to the old system.

Required:

a.Obviously these two workers have different views on how the systems analysis phase should be conducted. Comment on whose position you sympathize with the most.
b.What method would you propose they take? Why?

Given this situation, a dialogue between a systems professional, John Juan, and a manager of a department targeted for a new information system, Peter Pedro, I realized that obviously these two workers have different views on how the systems analysis phase should be conducted. However, it is so noted that John Juan actually expressed his views by telling or trying to convince Peter Pedro how an old system could be of help in the implementation of the new system analysis and that in doing so, reviewing of the key documents and actually observing workers perform their task would eventually help them determine which aspects are working well and which should be preserved. For John Juan, by doing so would basically result to the desired need that they wanted to change or upgrade . On the other hand, Peter Pedro, in his point of view, seemed already tired of doing the same old task after some experiences maybe in the past which made him said that "We have been through these types of projects before and what always ends up happening is that we do not get the new system we are promised; we get a modified version of the old system." By saying this, I observed that what he was trying to point out is that after doing the same thing they still didn’t get what they really wanted to have and doing such might have been a waste of time, effort , energy again and not to mention of course, the financial constraints. Peter Pedro is obviously dying to have a change in the system that would facilitate everything in a faster, more accurate and would also guide them through and would advance them in a cadence of time and surely in the world of technology. And who would want this time to stick to the same old and traditional system of analysis when the entire world is already pacing with global competitiveness in science, technology, business and industry?

Quoting John Juan's dialogue, "Well, I can assure you that will not happen this time. We just want a thorough understanding of what is working well and what isn’t." John Juan's calm , cool and patient gesture was so impressive as he tried to assure Peter Pedro that they still could get what they wanted by reviewing and observing the old system once more yet before a new system has to be implemented. For me, the way i looked at it, John Juan is really right but Just like Peter Pedro's view, it'll take time again. The situation already presented an experience in the past which resulted to a not-so-much favorable condition as what they have wanted which is obviously expressed by Peter Pedro's statement.

Quoting Peter Pedro, he said "I would feel much more comfortable if we first started with a list of our requirements. We should spend some time up-front determining exactly what we want the system to do for my department. Then you systems people can come in and determine what portions to salvage if you wish. Just don’t constrain us to the old system.” Peter Pedro, in his dialogue obviously displayed a strong-will for a change of the system at the soonest time possible. As I have already mentioned above, he is already dying to have a new system implemented in his department for he is obviously no longer satisfied with how the old system works which John Juan was still trying to review or reconstruct which to Peter Pedro yields the same result. He is therefore suggesting on how to go about with the plan. Obviously, he is done with the old system.

Evaluating and analyzing the situation, my sympathy is with Peter Pedro though John Juan had a point in presenting his views .But as observed, Peter Pedro wouldn’t react in that manner if not enough time was already spent in using the old system. Now the time for the new system to be tried and has to be started has come and true enough, whatever should they observe or notice in the implementation must be a springboard for improvement. They can use their experiences with the old system that John Juan actually already had.

When asked as to what method could I propose for them to take is based on what I had read on an article in the internet which suggests vital method for such purpose that gave me insight on how to go about with their plan initially. Well, sound planning of the implementation is crucial to its success as poor planning and inadequate resourcing are often primary causes of implementation failures. The scope of a pan-organizational software system implementation can be huge and is fraught with potential difficulties that may have long-term implications for the company. Not only does it include installation of the new software and the hardware it is to run on, but also precipitates panoply of potentially difficult and unavoidable human factors, many of which are completely unpredictable. Appreciating the conflicts that may arise will enable the organization to avoid these problems and for the management to anticipate likely trouble spots and mitigate accordingly and in good timing.

The first principal point that is required is for the company’s management to understand that the new system by itself is not some sort of silver bullet that will solve all problems hitherto experienced by the organization. The entire implementation process involves the complete business process and/or pedagogic practice, customer service, interaction with suppliers and a bond with all other interested stakeholders. Many less tangible activities are crucial and those involved must: Have a sound understanding of the organization, particularly in terms of its culture and values.

The rationale behind any new system implementation should have thoroughly considered how the system is likely to help provide a better service to all concerned with it. Communicate this understanding to all concerned parties. Undertake a very comprehensive review of all business processes and, where necessary, pedagogic practice, and begin to develop and introduce new policies and procedures before tuning the system to meet the agreed requirements; Have a complete appreciation of the complexity and flexibility of the system; Have an understanding of the inherent dangers of customization of any software and how these can be mitigated against; Conduct a thorough set systems testing procedures, whilst accepting the potential need for software 'bug fixes' and upgrades; Budget for the real costs of internal staff time and their training and development; Train all users to use the system; Train all users and supervisors to fault-find and correct autonomously; Acknowledge the critical nature of system documentation and maintain accordingly. Careful planning and efficient management of the implementation are vital to success and to negate the threats of spiraling costs, extended timescales, losing key personnel and general dissatisfaction with the outcome.

Finally, it is crucial that the “go live” day causes as little disruption to the day-to-day business as is reasonably practicable. Issues that only arise at this juncture become magnified and will undeniably adversely affect the organization's reputation, sometimes irrevocably, with all stakeholders. It is important to remember that poor project management and lack of communication at this crucial stage can ruin an otherwise faultless implementation.

SADi 5: SDLC (Systems Development Life Cycle) of the University

2010-06-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Consider your school, how do you know that the life cycle was developed specifically for the university. How do we know it meets our needs?

Understanding the question given was quite confusing to me. As I first read the question, I instantly got stuck passing the words “life cycle”, got baffled and kept on thinking what it was referring to before finishing reading the problem for there are lots and various meanings that we can get . Then suddenly I realized that it was the Systems Development Life Cycle being referred to since it was the only “life cycle” I knew with regards to the subject.

Distinctly, a systems development life cycle (SDLC) has three primary objectives. If I am not mistaken, these are: ensure that high quality systems are delivered, provide strong management controls over the projects, and maximize the productivity of the systems staff.

Based on what I've read, in order to meet these objectives, the SDLC has many specific requirements it must meet,including: being able to support projects and systems of various scopes and types, supporting all of the technical activities, supporting all of the management activities, being highly usable, and providing guidance on how to install it. And in order to meet all of the SDLC's objectives and requirements there are certain design approaches that are required: the SDLC must be an example of a system created using the techniques it espouses; it must keep distinct the "what" from the "how" in regards to doing the tasks and creating the outputs. The SDLC should clearly separate what tasks must be done from how they are done. The SDLC must clearly separate what information a task produces from how that information is displayed. This is required to ensure flexibility and maintainability in the lifecycle. It must organize its information in a hierarchical manner so that users with varying degrees of familiarity can find what they want easily and quickly.

Now, relating to our own university, how do you know that the life cycle was developed specifically for the university?
For me, If it provides the university with an opportunity to improve its employees’ professionalism, if it produces better quality of the systems. This means less scrap and rework to cover omissions, easier maintenance changes and fewer midnight calls to fix bugs. If it is appropriate for the geographical situation, if it is appropriate for the size and complexity of the university’s software, if it is appropriate for the type of projects our university do. Moreover, if the life cycle of the university can meet all the standards of an ideal SDLC such as those objectives and requirements I have mentioned above that best suits the university, then I can say that it is specifically developed.

How do we know it meets our needs? The life cycle is selected after an analysis of the requirements. As with acquiring any package, we must do some level of tailoring to adapt it to our organization, the university. The tailoring required should be relatively minor. The basic tasks and techniques required to build and support systems does not vary much from company to company, nor even from industry to industry.

Defining or selecting an SDLC should be undertaken as a project with full time resources who have the appropriate level of expertise. It is an extremely high leverage effort. It also represents a major cultural change for the staff. It must be planned and executed in as professional a manner as possible.

SADi 4: System Development Models

2010-06-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

Identify and discuss at least 3 systems development models .. discuss each phases ...

The trends of increasing technical complexity of the systems, coupled with the need for repeatable and predictable process methodologies, have driven System Developers to establish system development models or software development life cycle models. As what I have learned about the system development models, it is an abstract representation of a process. Also, it presents a description of a process from some particular perspective. System development model specifies how activities of development process are organized in the total system development effort.

Now, let me discuss some of the system development models which are commonly used as to what I have researched, read, and learned.

THE WATERFALL MODEL

To start, Waterfall approach was first Process Model to be introduced and followed widely in Software Engineering to ensure success of the project. In "The Waterfall" approach, the whole process of software development is divided into separate process phases. This is the classic SDLC model, with a linear and sequential method that has goals for each development phase. The waterfall model simplifies task scheduling, because there are no iterative or overlapping steps. One drawback of the waterfall is that it does not allow for much revision. In waterfall model phases, one phase has to be complete before moving on to the next phase.

With the waterfall model, the activities performed in a software development project are requirements analysis, project planning, system design, detailed design, coding and unit testing, system integration and testing. Linear ordering of activities has some important consequences. First, to clearly identify the end of a phase and beginning of the others. Some certification mechanism has to be employed at the end of each phase. This is usually done by some verification and validation. Validation means confirming the output of a phase is consistent with its input (which is the output of the previous phase) and that the output of the phase is consistent with overall requirements of the system.

For a successful project resulting in a successful product, all phases listed in the waterfall model must be performed anyway. Any different ordering of the phases will result in a less successful software product.

During our Software Engineering I, system development models were also discussed such as this waterfall model. In that time, I have found out some problems regarding this kind of model. First, inflexible partitioning of the project into distinct stages makes it difficult to respond to changing customer requirements. Second, few business systems have stable requirements. Third, it is appropriate only when the requirements are well understood and changes will be fairly limited during the design process.

The advantages of this model is that it is easy to understand and easy to use, it provides structures to inexperienced staff, sets requirements stability, and is good for management control such as plan, staff and track. A schedule can be set with deadlines for each stage of development and a product can proceed through the development process like a car in a carwash, and theoretically, be delivered on time. Development moves from concept, through design, implementation, testing, installation, troubleshooting, and ends up at operation and maintenance. Each phase of development proceeds in strict order, without any overlapping or iterative steps.

The disadvantage of waterfall development is that it does not allow for much reflection or revision. Once an application is in the testing stage, it is very difficult to go back and change something that was not well-thought out in the concept stage. Alternatives to the waterfall model include joint application development (JAD), rapid application development (RAD), synch and stabilize, build and fix, and the spiral model. There are also limitations in using this model. All requirements must be known upfront, system can be frozen before the design begins, and little opportunity for customer to preview the system (until it may be too late).

This model best applies for large systems engineering projects where a system is developed at several sites.

THE PROTOTYPING MODEL

A prototype is a working model that is functionally equivalent to a component of the product.

In many instances the client only has a general view of what is expected from the software product. In such a scenario where there is an absence of detailed information regarding the input to the system, the processing needs and the output requirements, the prototyping model may be employed.

This model reflects an attempt to increase the flexibility of the development process by allowing the client to interact and experiment with a working representation of the product. The developmental process only continues once the client is satisfied with the functioning of the prototype. At that stage the developer determines the specifications of the client’s real needs.

In this model, a prototype (an early approximation of a final system or product) is built, tested, and then reworked as necessary until an acceptable prototype is finally achieved from which the complete system or product can now be developed.

As for the advantages of his model, let me indicate some: Customers can “see” the system requirements as they are being gathered, More accurate end product, Unexpected requirements accommodated, Allows for flexible design and development, and Lower overall development costs when requirements change frequently.

Same with the waterfall model, prototyping has limitations too. Prototyping can lead to false expectations. Prototyping can lead to poorly designed systems.

For any company engaged in rapid prototyping and manufacturing or functional testing, prototype models are crucial for troubleshooting potential problems in the design process. Prototype models allow product designers and engineers to quickly test the parts of their designs that are most likely to have problems, solve those problems, and then build the complete design. While prototype models are by definition cheap to produce, it can be expensive to build multiple iterations during therapid prototype tooling process, and turnaround times can be too lengthy for today's tight deadlines.

With a knowledge of this kind of model, I couldn’t keep asking myself on to what are the best projects to use prototyping. It has been argued that prototyping, in some form or another, should be used all the time. However, prototyping is most beneficial in systems that will have many interactions with the users.

It has been found that prototyping is very effective in the analysis and design of on-line systems, especially for transaction processing, where the use of screen dialogs is much more in evidence. The greater the interaction between the computer and the user, the greater the benefit is that can be obtained from building a quick system and letting the user play with it.

Systems with little user interaction, such as batch processing or systems that mostly do calculations, benefit little from prototyping. Sometimes, the coding needed to perform the system functions may be too intensive and the potential gains that prototyping could provide are too small.

Prototyping is especially good for designing good human-computer interfaces. "One of the most productive uses of rapid prototyping to date has been as a tool for iterative user requirements engineering and human-computer interface design."

THE SPIRAL MODEL

The spiral model was defined by Barry Boehm in his 1988 article A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement. This model was not the first model to discuss iterative development, but it was the first model to explain why the iteration matters. As originally envisioned, the iterations were typically 6 months to 2 years long. Each phase starts with a design goal and ends with the client (who may be internal) reviewing the progress thus far. Analysis and engineering efforts are applied at each phase of the project, with an eye toward the end goal of the project.

The spiral model, also known as the spiral lifecycle model, is a systems development method (SDM) used in information technology (IT). This model of development combines the features of the prototyping model and the waterfall model. The spiral model is intended for large, expensive, and complicated projects.

In Spiral development, process is represented as a spiral rather than as a sequence of activities with backtracking, each loop in the spiral represents a phase in the process, no fixed phases such as specification or design - loops in the spiral are chosen depending on what is required, and risks are explicitly assessed and resolved throughout the process.

About the model’s sectors, there are these, Objective setting in which specific objectives for the phase are identified, Risk assessment and reduction in which risks are assessed and activities put in place to reduce the key risks, Development and validation in which a development model for the system is chosen which can be any of the generic models, and Planning in which the project is reviewed and the next phase of the spiral is planned.

There are many advantages to using the spiral model in software development. Spiral model Estimates (i.e. budget, schedule, etc.) become more realistic as work progresses, because important issues are discovered earlier. It is more able to cope with the (nearly inevitable) changes that software development generally entails. Software engineers (who can get restless with protracted design processes) can get their hands in and start working on a project earlier.

Using, or perhaps misusing, spiral modeling can also have disadvantages. Highly customized limiting re-usability, Applied differently for each application, Risk of not meeting budget or schedule, and Risk of not meeting budget or schedule.

With the support of my learnings in our Software Engineering I and with the aid of my references, I can now identify the different system development models. I learned that the systems development life cycle model was developed as a structured approach to information system development that guides all the processes involved from an initial feasibility study through to maintenance of the finished application. SDLC models take a variety of approaches to development and each process model follows a particular life cycle in order to ensure success in process of software development.

References:

http://onestoptesting.com

SADi 3: Systems Analyst as a Project Manager

2010-06-02T23:52:00.000-07:00

Discuss the role of a systems analyst as a project manager.

As for this 3rd assignment given to us, still we need to interview an analyst/project manager. But last time during our interview to Mr. James Bautista for assignment two, we didn’t miss the opportunity to ask him questions in relation to this problem about the role of a systems analyst as project manager.

Project manager as he may say manages the entire team and the entire project. When you say manages the entire project, most of the time, the project manager will be talking to the client, talking to the team. He/she will be doing the design model, etc. He/she will be talking to the developers. Aside from talking, the other role of the project manager is that he will get the overall specification of the project. When you say overall specification, you are talking about the overall scope. Then Sir James started asking us if we already have developed a system even in a simplest way and we answered “Yes”. He then asked if who our clients were and begins talking about the client. He said that the client should be the one who are not using the system but the one who needed the system. An example was given to us. There is a mother in the grocery store. The mother is holding a baby. The mother is buying diapers for the baby. Now, who is the client for this situation? Some of us answered the mother and some of us answered the baby for the reason that the baby needs the diaper. But when Sir James give the answer, some of us got confused. The client is the mother, he said. He added that the clients are the people who have money. Now I got his point. Though the baby is in need of the diaper, still, the baby cannot have the diapers if the mother won’t buy it. Just like if a client wants to have a system because he needs it. He can have it if he has the money to pay to the company of his choice for the service of making his system. But why is Sir James talking about that? As a project manager, you really have to know and really have to identify the people involved in the project. There will be the client and there will be the end-users. Sometimes a client and an end-user can be different. Back to what he said about the project manager will get the specifications, he added that the project specifications are not really the details but the idea. Example, a client wants to have a website that will generate another website. So inside the website, the client can make another website from the website ID – something like that. Then the client will give an overview and will talk to the project manager about the details of the website. The project manager will get the specifications. But before the project manager will return to the client, the project manager should see the team first, talk to the developers and will talk about the modeling process, etc., get the details like how many days can the project be done, how many hours, the problems involved, what to need, and what to require. Just the time the project manager gets the information from the team, the project manager will talk to the client again then send out any communication as discussing the overall specifications, presenting the things to do, sorting of the tasks broken down and the timeline. The project manager will delegate tasks to the team .In making a timeline, there is what they call padding. A week before the deadline or earlier, the tasks should be done. The purpose of this timeline is for flexibility allowance in case something might go wrong. Remember the Murphy’s Law, “If anything can go wrong, it will.”

Project management is not that hard given the strong confidence of your team when you know the skills of every one in your team. But the hard part here according to Sir James is the communication with the client. “As a project manager, you have this role knowing that one of the clients will ask updates. You should always be the one to give the update first and not to wait for the client to ask for it.”, Sir James said. He also told us about the two kinds of client: the Pinoy client, and the U.S. client. In project management, there is a big difference when it comes to the project in the Philippines and the project in the U.S. in his point of view, it is so easy to deal with the Pinoy client for the reasons that they don’t set deadlines or if they do, you can ask and have an extension, don’t ask updates from time to time, and majority will not give you a hard time. Pinoy client actually doesn’t care about how the project will be made as long as they get what they want when they put it into operation and will not ask you in the middle but just ask on the 30th day at the end of the project. In U.S. clients, everyday is update day. So they have a common rule that at the beginning of the day, they will tell the client about the updates of the project, informing them about what they did on that day. On the following day, they will put things that they worked on like showing the things they completed for the day. After this, they will point out that after all the work, they will be working on the next phase of the project like another set of list. Consequently, there are three lists all in all: things you have done, things you will do for today, and the things you will do for tomorrow. That’s the kind of update they want and you have to give that update twice a day, at the beginning of the day, and the end of the day. That’s how it is. Very tasky but it works. In U.S. clients, when they say deadline it is always deadline. This client is expecting something to be done at the due date or before. If you cannot make it on the deadline, tell your client maybe a week before, the earlier the better so that they will not expect, stop the client from expecting anything on the completion date. Lastly, the last but not the least, is the most important role of the project manager, is to make the client “Happy”. Happy client equals Money.

SADi 2: Skills and Characteristics of a Systems Analyst

2010-06-02T23:43:00.001-07:00

Interview a Systems Analyst and ask what skills and characteristics must a systems analyst develop in order to be more effective in any design modeling process.

In today's modern office, information technology is necessary to conduct business. A systems analyst helps organizations achieve goals by utilizing information technology. Through the use of software and hardware, he may help design new computer systems or figure out ways to fine-tune existing systems. A systems analyst is also known as a computer systems analyst. Computer system analysts are concerned more with the computer system itself - and you'd need experience/training in whatever computer system that particular company is using. This does not mean you could not become a computer systems analyst - as most companies would feel that your managerial experience is more welcome than your computer knowledge. What the company would want is someone who understands the basic workings of their system to be able to fix, create, evolve as the company evolves.

SAMULCO stands for Sta. Ana Multipurpose Cooperative and is the company that we have chosen to have an interview to their systems analyst in regards to this assignment given to us. Samulco is currently run by people of diverse profession in the community, such as doctors, teachers, bankers, businessmen, accountant, policemen, and IT professionals. One of these people is Mr. James Bautista, an IT graduate, and the company’s systems analyst.

We started the interview by asking, “What skills and characteristics must a systems analyst develop in order to be more productive in any design modeling process?” Mr. James Bautista, the Samulco’s Management Information Systems supervisor answered us by defining first what a systems analyst is. According to him, a systems analyst should see the problem alone. Meaning, problem must be seen first before the solution. A systems analyst also needs to analyze and solve problems in an efficient manner so as to achieve results and meet deadlines. He or she should be able to mentally handle having several projects to monitor simultaneously, while possessing the ability to organize, prioritize, and show initiative in attacking the problem at hand. Now, going back to the first question, he gave us four answers. First, is that the systems analyst must be a keen observer. A systems analyst must be keen to detail, must be observant in every single detail. Mr. James added that in any modeling process, if you miss a detail when the development had already started it signifies waste of human resource, time, and money. Second, a systems analyst must have developed basic programming skills. Although an analyst is not a programmer, he/she must have the knowledge about programming even just the basics. I think it is because a systems analyst and the developer/programmer is dependent with each other. The systems analyst looks at the requirements and designs the solution at the systems level. The analyst will often design the external interfaces and functionality of each piece, but will not get down to the implementation or code level since there’s a programmer to do that. The programmer takes the design from the analyst, and implements or codes each component, testing along the way to ensure that the implementation meets the design. This is also a two-way street. Say for example, during the implementation, the programmer may realize there is a need to revise the system design, and will go back to the analyst. The analyst will then integrate the required change/s into the design. Sometimes, these roles overlap. Certainly, if the project is small, the analyst and programmer can be the same person. Next, are the two characteristics that sir James define and differentiate. A systems analyst is a global thinker which means that an analyst should look in the overall of the project and not just the details while a developer is a systematic thinker or a local thinker that all he sees is the piece of codes and solutions to the problem. To further understand the difference between the two, here’s a sample situation: Two men were digging a hole in the ground. Someone stopped and asked what they are doing. First man answered that they are digging a hole in the ground. The second man said that they are building a house. Here, the local thinker is the first man while the global thinker is the second man. Fourth, an analyst should have a good communication skills. Communication skill is important in a systems analyst especially when dealing with clients, said sir James. Communicating with clients and coworkers is a very important step for a systems analysis to success on the job. A systems analyst must be really able to communicate well. Excellent verbal and written communication skills are a must for anyone wishing to pursue a career as a systems analyst. He or she also needs to be able to cooperate and get along with others while thriving in a team-oriented environment. A systems analyst must posses good interpersonal communication skills because they must be able to converse back and forth with the client over what the problem is and how to go about finding the best solution. This is the point where good problem solving skills come into play. In order to find the best possible solution, the systems analyst will have to define the problem and come up with a way to solve it that is most beneficial to everyone.

On that interview, I gained more knowledge about the systems analyst. I learned that an analyst must possess various skills to effectively carry out the job and that systems analysts need to be independent thinkers-people who can “think out of the box” by grasping concepts quickly and seeing the big picture as opposed to the small details. I am lucky having that chance to interview a real systems analyst for the reason that I clarified some queries in my mind regarding about my systems analyst (personal thoughts, own conception) and the real systems analyst. The purpose of this interview is not just to have an answer on this assignment but to help us understand what really a systems analyst is. Thanks to sir James for allowing us to take some of his precious time for us to have an interview with him.

SADi: "Me", a Systems Analyst

2010-06-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

Based on your learnings of chapter 1, identify and discuss some charateristics you have as a good Systems Analyst.

A thinker who focuses on the problem as stated and tries to synthesize information and knowledge to achieve a solution, is a problem solver. A Systems analyst as defined is a business professional who uses analysis and design techniques to solve business problems using information technology. Therefore, a systems analyst is a problem solver. That is what I learned last Wednesday as we started discussing the world of information system analyst as the first topic of our Systems Analysis and Design I subject.

I learned many things about the systems analyst even the various characteristics an analyst should possess. An analyst as a business problem solver has computer technology knowledge and programming expertise that is, an analyst must certainly know about computers and computer programs, understands business problems, uses logical methods for solving problems, has fundamental curiosity which is an analyst must also bring to the job a fundamental curiosity to explore how things are done, wants to make things better and is more of a business problem solver than a technical programmer.
Now, the characteristics that I have that are similar to a good systems analysts are the following:
• Has computer technology knowledge and programming expertise. I may not be an expert in programming but I can slowly develop expertise in it and also possess special skills.
• Has fundamental curiosity. Since I like to know and explore how things are made and done.
• Has the determination to work better.

In chapter 1, I also learned about the required knowledge and skills for a systems analyst, the technical knowledge and technical skills where an analyst needs a technical expertise that should understand the fundamentals about computers, tools and techniques for developing systems, business knowledge and business skills which are those that apply to understanding business organizations, and people knowledge and people skills where interpersonal skills are involved. Interpersonal skills in business contexts often used to refer to the measure of a person’s ability to operate within business organization through social communication and interaction. Meaning, it is how people relate to one another.

Having recognized those knowledge and skills, I can tell that I possess some of those characteristics an analyst has. Talking about the technical knowledge and skills, since I am a computer literate and having some knowledge about technicalities, I may possess this kind of skill. For the business knowledge and business skills, systems analysts benefit from a fairly broad understanding of businesses, so during college years they typically study business administration. Computer information systems or management information systems majors are often included in the college of business for that reason. Just like what we have in our school for information technology students, management information systems were also included as one of our subjects. Including this kind of subject in a curriculum let the students learn and gain knowledge on how to manage businesses and how to deal with the information systems as well as the processes in a business organization. One must understand the organization, its culture, its mission, and its objectives before jumping to conclusions about system solutions. You cannot manage if you don’t have any idea on how an organization should be dealt with. It is a big help for us students to have at least an idea on how businesses perform in the real world especially when a student graduated and started to work. The learnings and the importance of it should not be overlooked for this is in fact, very useful and beneficial as they continue working on their future to achieve a successful career and have a better life. The last knowledge and skill which is the people knowledge and people skill is where I can relate most. This is where a lot should take notice of because of its involvement in people. People knowledge and people skills are perhaps the most important skill of an analyst because they rely on others such as the manager, users, programmers, technical specialists, customers, and vendors to take a system from initial idea to final implementation. To be a translator for all projects participants, translating business objectives, and even technical jargon and details into terms that nontechnical personnel can easily understand is a form of people skill. Also, being an effective communicator is another form of people skill.

Possessing those different characteristics of a good systems analyst proved me that I, even just a student can be an analyst too. It’s not always that one should hold a title on his profession and have been certified or should have all the required knowledge and skills and other specific characteristics for him to consider oneself that he/she is a good analyst. Those who do not hold any profession may think and analyze better than those who do. No one thinks the same as the other. They may have the same idea yet, they have their own special way of explaining and expressing their ideas in such a way others can understand what they were thinking and what exactly they were trying to convey to their listeners. A person differs from the other person. Always remember, “You are unique, just like everyone else.”

MISii 9: Identify and discuss three changes likely to have substantial impact on your school services in the next three years.

2010-03-18T03:06:00.000-07:00

The pace of change seems to increase relentlessly, especially changes involving information technology. Using your crystal ball, identify and discuss three changes likely to have substantial impact on your school services in the next three years. (1500 words)

The task to develop an essay about a certain situation always makes my dendrites grow…Now if this happens, does this imply change? Change in my internal faculty? A mental growth or exercise? Or a change in my routine? Well, whatever it may be, I know for sure that this is a part of me. Whatever I thought is what I will become. A Change happens. Now what is my issue? What is my cause? What will I write? As assigned, the topic is written below.

“The pace of change seems to increase relentlessly, especially changes involving information technology. Using your crystal ball, identify and discuss three changes likely to have substantial impact on your school services in the next three years. (1500 words).. “

Change..change..change..development..progress..what more? Very much related…words that speak volume. Wherever one goes and whatever one does, the word CHANGE is like a shadow that always comes along. But how is change identified? Is it if the result is positive or negative? Good or bad? Where is it going? Does it cause an effect? Absolutely! But what causes the change? Ahhh…numerous causes..various reasons..many factors. Changes happen anywhere and everywhere.

Trying to look at my crystal ball, I can see that one main change that has been affecting our life, for the past 20 years or so, that has impacted all phases of our life, is the advent of the computers. We are at the point of breaking the nano second in processing data and this event will have no precedence as to how our world will be. Schools already use the computers to substitute regular teachers and make it easier for students to receive education, receive and transmit their assignments. Because computers at the present moment are limited in their capacity, with the advent of powerful servers and computers, more students will be able to search and receive better transmissions. I can visualize many classrooms being served by one professor with the new systems. More and better information will be available to all students and best of all, quicker processing.

As I looked at my crystal ball again, I happened to find a statement of Luther S. Williams, Assistant Director Directorate for Education and Human Resources in United States of America . According to him, “The National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) is responsible for providing national leadership and support for improving the quality and accessibility of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SME&T) education, kindergarten through graduate school. In a nation – indeed a global economy – increasingly based on information as its common currency, the provision of appropriate information technology in addition to well prepared teachers, instructors and facilitators of such powerful tools, must become a vital part of the entire educational continuum as we step into the next century.

In order to be effective, the use of technology in education must involve not only the provision of equipment such as computer hardware and software, but also the human aspects of essential content, engaging presentation, effective pedagogy, appropriate evaluation, and widespread dissemination. Communication and computing provide dynamic tools, placing nearly continuous demands on financial reserves and human resources as equipment and professional training are revised and upgraded. The NSF-hosted workshop presented in these proceedings addressed these and other issues in order to define unique perspectives, concerns, and desirable benefits of educational technology to a broad spectrum of constituents. The notion of widespread, uniform access to information technology is not a trivial problem. As more adults, paraprofessionals, and part-time students utilize the classroom or laboratory to seek skills in the use of generic or specialized technology, we see that the traditional purviews of academe now extend deep into the entire community. Regardless of the rapidity or direction of change offered by exciting and revolutionary new technologies, the true challenge for developing guiding principles for their appropriate implementation lies in the inclusion of all students at all types of academic institutions, with secure and tangible links to the public and private sectors. Again, while access for all, coherence in underlying infrastructure, and compliance between the skills taught in school and those necessary in the workplace are fundamental to this discussion, it is the collective effort of our human capital that will ensure these powerful tools do not instead widen the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. As this vast endeavor is begun, the cross-divisional and multidisciplinary activities will encourage projects that create effective learning environments with the broadest possible access to them.” This I find as an inspiration for this institution to at least conceive an act or a program like this.

The third change that I found in my crystal ball is a very vital information that could possibly give an idea or insights to this institution about the K-Web by Patrick McKercher, Judy Bonne and Andy Rogers.

The Knowledge Web (K-Web) is an interactive tool for understanding and inspiring the creation of ideas, and for vividly demonstrating how our world is a direct result of ideas and events of the past. Students can trace the profound influence not only of Aristotle's logic, but also see how perspective in painting literally changed the way we see the world, or how the invention of the car would not have been possible without the perfume bottle. By flying through its unique 3D nested globes, which combine space and time into a single intuitive construct, users can explore how seemingly unrelated people, places and disciplines interrelate in unexpected and unpredictable ways to produce our world.

The Knowledge Web vividly demonstrates that all subjects are connected, and offers an innovative, accessible yet compelling and powerful tool for their exploration. Moreover, it graphically shows that the present is the outgrowth of the past, and helps us anticipate the future.
The K-Web is informed by Constructivist methodology, and thus the ability of students to create material, not just passively consume it, is key. It is what one of the project advisors Doug Engelbart (best known for creating the computer mouse and a pioneer of virtual collaborative organizations) calls a Dynamic Knowledge Repository. Not only will its database be able to connect to the Library of Congress and other digital collections, but students will be able to contribute content. In this ever-growing omnipedia or library, the user can get the kind of information she wants in the way she wants it (text, video, simulations and immersive virtual reality.) Moreover, the user can see how ideas of a given text evolved (or even mutated) through time, how they were situated in varying contexts, and their effects on our lives today.

But the Knowledge Web goes beyond interactivity to immersion. Selected people and places will be recreated in virtual reality; thus students could visit DaVinci's studio, chat with him, read his notebooks, and solve a problem with him and other students in real time using his materials or apparatus. It might seem that educational virtual reality (edVR) is too difficult and expensive, but the opposite is true. The software is free, and some software like Activeworlds makes creation of such environments so simple that middle school students make them. Some artificial intelligence programs are so easy that the only skill required to teach a character to interact with a user is typing. Students can create learning environments for other students, and teachers will be able to pool assignments they've created based on the K-Web in a searchable database articulated to standards and frameworks.
EdVR allows role-playing and simulations, which enables rich exploration of complex situations. Such role-playing brings us back to the original meaning of e-ducation, to draw out: students can engage passionately but safely.

I am excited by the potential of VR for a number of other reasons (see: http://cyburkespace.net/content/origins.htm), but briefly it lends itself to constructivism by its very nature. Often students too shy to participate in class or who do not shine in the rather narrow range of behavior we call being a good student will do so in virtual spaces. When students see VR, they want to master it, which requires all sorts of mathematical, artistic and even diplomatic skills. They either have to acquire these skills or deal with those who have them.

An important aspect of the Knowledge Web is that it involves students and teachers as participatory designers. Learn by best by doing together and are "hard-wired" to play, to build and to work cooperatively. Students build learning experiences that require many and high level thinking skills, precisely those needed in the twenty-first century. This is further explored below.

The introduction of the desktop computer has simultaneously challenged and invigorated the institution we know as school. The technology and information age launched a whole new vocabulary and concept of teaching. The days of teachers as purveyors of knowledge were made increasingly irrelevant. The new questions are:
• "How is learning organized in the classroom?"
• "What is the role of the teacher?"
• "How to teach students to access, evaluate, and synthesize the volume of information they encounter?"

Schools have been slow to adapt to the information age for a number of reasons. Lack of technology, infrastructure, learning needs of the teachers, and poor quality materials are a start on a lengthy list of barriers. So there is a need to prepare learners to live in a complex, high tech, and fast-changing world. That requires that schools be responsive, fluid and adaptive to emerging needs and opportunities.

In this endeavor the Knowledge Web is pivotal; a dynamic learning resource converges with equally dynamic approaches to teaching and learning.

References:

Brooks, J. & Brooks, M. (1999). In Search of Understanding; The Case for Constructivist Classrooms. Virginia: ASCD.
Gardner, H. (1991). The Disciplined Mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.

MISii 8: Develop a strategic information systems plan for a company

2010-03-18T02:54:00.000-07:00

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question. (1000 words)

Ahhh…me..getting hired and tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company is so rewarding and such a lifetime opportunity to handle with. And voila! I am given a situation to work on and to think about. Wow…so related to how do I foresee myself one day, maybe five or ten years from now…funny thoughts anyway. But what really is this Strategic Information System all about? According to Lederer, Albert J. and Sethi, Vijay, 1996 Strategic information systems planning (SISP) has been defined as the process of identifying a portfolio of computer-based applications that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realizing its business goals. SISP is an important activity for helping information executives and top management identify strategic applications and align IT with business needs.

Well, as expected, the company officers have extended an invitation for me to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company and before this meeting, they have asked that I provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting. Hmmmm…thoughts to ponder. But most of all I should know the over-all structure of my company. And to do this, I should start listing down all issues and concerns I should raise and what I wanted to know for this is where my life as a career person would revolve.

What is the mission and vision of this company? These are the services that you are responsible for and it is your place in the organization or in the company and it is not what you are supposed to achieve but it is who you are and what you do in the company.

What are its goals and objectives? Once goals and objectives are set then strategies and policies could then be eventually derived. What do you want to achieve and what are your specific and measurable targets?

What is the organizational structure of the company? Who composed the company? Who are the people behind it and who are working on it? Human resource..what is it composed of?

Why Plan and what are its plans? The scope of planning must be studied. For sure, planning is very important to obtain resources from all departments of the company in financial and facilities, staff, to align information system with the business, identify needed applications, To establish goals and schedules, to provide opportunity for communication with top management and user management, to know and analyze the outcomes and the process whether it is proactive or reactive. Planning and forecasting play very important role in this phase and must be considered also. And all these plans must be implemented and results be monitored.

Is there a need of a short term, medium term or long range plan? Why?
Yes, a need of short, medium, and long-range plans are also suggested. It is in a short range plan where the next year, the next budget period developing and operating current systems be initially done.

A medium range plan, it is when committing to development efforts for applications that will take more than one year to complete meeting management’s current information needs be protected into the future for as many years as needed to complete them. And the Long range planning is into preparing for management’s future information needs. These are not applications specific but they are investments in infrastructure and it is more on creating information designs.

What are to be assessed and why assess? The capabilities of the IT department must be assesses to know if it is ready to use the Information Technology, the status of the customer and industry, the status of the economy and government, regulations, and the technology itself.

This is actually very similar to SWOT which means Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and Threats.

What are the strategies and policies?
Why are strategies and polices have to be identified and derived? It is very important to derive strategies and policies for a most effective and focused Technology, personnel and career development, and aligning with the company. Policies have to be emphasized for funding criteria, to know how much to spend on its Information technology and information system. Allocation criteria is always a priority setting in an organization or company and its organizational arrangements must well be organized. The use of outside IT services must also be identified to be able to locate and identify outsourcing for this area. Likewise, selling IT services to outside organization might as well be of use on this purpose.

Finally, according to Somendra Pant and Cheng Hsu, 1995, planning for information systems, as for any other system, begins with the identification of needs. In order to be effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need -- whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. Such planning for information systems is much like strategic planning in management. Objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future, priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application area. The plan must be specific enough to enable understanding of each application and to know where it stands in the order of development. Also the plan should be flexible so that priorities can be adjusted if necessary. King (King, 1995) in his recent article has argued that strategic capability architecture - a flexible and continuously improving infrastructure of organizational capabilities – is the primary basis for a company's sustainable competitive advantage. He has emphasized the need for continuously updating and improving the strategic capabilities architecture.

SISP is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together. Lastly, the task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy. Also strategic information systems planning changes the planning characteristic in major ways. For example, the time horizon for planning changes from 1 year to 3 years or more and development plans are driven by current and future business needs rather than incremental user needs. Increase in the time horizon is a factor which results in poor response from the top management to the strategic information systems planning process as it is difficult to hold their attention for such a long period. Other questions associated with strategic information systems planning are related to the scope of the planning study, the focus of the planning exercise corporate organization vs. strategic business unit, number of studies and their sequence, choosing a strategic information systems planning methodology or developing one if none is suitable, targets of planning and deliverables. Because of the complexity of the strategic information systems planning process and uniqueness of each organization, there is no one best way to tackle it (Vitale, 1986).

MISii 7: Google's Business Model

2010-03-18T02:46:00.000-07:00

Google is a highly successful Internet business. Recently they have broadened their scope with a multitude of new tools. Research Google’s business model and answer the following questions below. You may add additional information not included in these questions.

Questions:

Questions :
Explain Google’s business model.
1. Who are their competitors?
2. How have they used information technology to their advantage?
3. How competitive are they in the market?
4. What new services do they offer?
5. What makes them so unique?
6. How competitive are they in the international market?

Google is by far the biggest search engine destination, content provider and advertising destination in the world. Google’s primary business is advertising revenue. It is expanding into areas that it believes are important to maintaining that revenue stream.

Google's primarily advertising-based business model which is highly profitable can over time position itself to be immune from commoditization and price competition by ensuring there is a consistent stream of new services introduced globally. This is consistent with the concept of continually pursuing new capabilities to deliver increased customer value, thereby strengthening and extending the advertising business model Google is based on.

Who are their competitors?

Google is one such name in the Technology arena that is well poised to rule. Talking of past decade, it’s been all the way up for Google and undoubtedly they have been ruling the internet economy. Google have had its impact in the industry with more than 150 products and will continue to grow with its ever increasing portfolio of products. This is likely to happen but for these 10 companies which have poised some serious competition to Google.

1. Apple
Being from partners to rivals, Apple is one of the stringent opponents for Google in the year 2010. Today, Apple and Google have been locking their horns in the field of Smartphone, Mobile App Store, OS, Mobile Ad, and Online Music and so on.

2. Microsoft
Microsoft is a company that has had one of the most dominant impacts in the IT industry. So without a doubt it is Google’s biggest adversary in 2010 and these two giants will be locking their horns for market supremacy in areas such as search, collaboration tools and browsers.

3. Amazon
There claims of opening up Google Editions, an e-book store, has opened up new rivalry with Amazon. The other area where Google is taking on Amazon is in cloud computing.

4. Facebook
In 2010, Google and Facebook rivalry is likely to heat up based on question that where will people find there information in future in Search or Social Network? With ever increasing use of social networking and the rise of Facebook, Google’s worry seems to a viable one. So, in 2010 Google with its ORKUT (offers Google Friend Connect) will be in battle with Facebook.

5. Twitter
No doubt if Facebook is in rise, than it’s no difference with Twitter. If social networking is the way to go, then Google will certainly find Twitter in its way. Twitter, a micro-blogging site, has in a way revolutionized the way we communicate these days.

6. Mozilla
With release of Google Chrome, Google has stepped into ever so popular browse battle. Mozilla has been in the markets for years and now this step from Google is likely to create the conflict of interest between these two.

7. Yahoo
When it comes to search, one of Google’s biggest competitors besides Microsoft is Yahoo. Yahoo has been in the market with variety of products in areas of email, Messenger, News, Search and Analytics services. So without doubt it will be a fearsome competitor for Google.

8. Cisco
Google definitely has a tough challenge against Cisco. With years of experience on web based collaborative platfomr, WebEx, and superior VOIP service, Cisco poses a threat to Google’s Wave and Voice.

9. IBM
2010 is likely to reopen Google’s rivalry with IBM with the release of new collaboration tools such as Google Wave.

10. Nokia
Today, Nokia has had grab hold of the mobile phone market with 4 out of 10 mobiles sold. With increase in use of smart phones, means the IT giants Google will be in rivalry with Nokia in periphery of operating systems for Smartphones. Symbian Open source operating system will be competing with Google’s Android.

How have they used information technology to their advantage?

I’ve read an article about IT’s Competitive Advantage by Brian P. Watson in where the Google CIO Ben Fried shares his thoughts on how IT leaders can influence corporate culture and differentiation via innovative technology choices. Ben Fried believes that IT plays a pivotal role in building a great culture—and subsequently a great company—and he puts it into practice in a number of ways.

One part of that is making technology accessible and open. By giving users what they want—instead of what the company believes is best—Fried believes CIOs can empower employees to do more. “It’s almost insulting to people when they hear, ‘We know better than you how it’s best for you to work,’” he says. And the company benefits not only from the increased productivity and morale, but also when recruiting talented support professionals. But it also puts a good face on IT. In an era in which business users believe their IT organizations take too long and spend too much for products and services that don’t meet their needs, CIOs and their teams need to make smarter decisions, he says.

Talking about IT as a competitive advantage, Fried said that creating competitive advantage is incredibly important, but he thinks we need to be aware that differentiation doesn’t necessarily have to limit itself to competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is one important way in which a company can differentiate itself. But more and more, people need to understand the way IT becomes part of corporate culture. Part of establishing a great company is establishing a unique culture. It’s critical to find what defines your company and makes it different. It might not necessarily be making the product better or cheaper that creates competitive advantage. Technology has a unique opportunity to make your company different, and that’s what CIOs just like him need to focus on.

What new services do they offer?

Today, Google is a huge company with several dozen outstanding products, yet it always strives hard for better future plans. Past year – 2009 has been exciting for the giant with couple of interesting release such as Google wave, preview of Google voice, introduced Chrome OS and Google Public DNS to name a few. So what does Google has in mind for 2010? Of course one interesting release waiting is the Google Phone – Nexus one, but then there is lot more to come from the entire team that can make our lives easy and exhilarating. Here is the Top 5 product that Google may plans to launch in 2010.

1. Google Phone – Nexus One -
By now you already know that Nexus One is the upcoming Google Phone and the great news is that it would be debuted anytime now in the Android Press Meeting. Nexus One is expected to display the latest generation of Linux-based open sourceAndroid operating system. In fact, this is also first phone that will be marketed directly by Google, in turn setting up extremely higher expectations for the product. Engadget has already reviewed the phone before the launch and it beings some interesting set of information you might link to know. The phone is also said to bring tough competition for Apple iPhone.

2. Google’s Caffeine Search Engine -
Caffeine is the next version of Google’s search-engine infrastructure and will soon be available to the wider audience. Caffeine engine is expected to offer technology to deliver faster and more accurate results. This version was available for test and there is no specific date for launch given yet, but Google is sure to develop it fully in early 2010. The reason for not releasing it in 2009 was thoroughly explained by Matt cuts. As soon as the search engine release the first threat will directly be on Microsoft’s Bing.

3. Google’s Ebook Store -
Google has always been fond of books and have encouraged it reader to take part often. With that love Google now plans to launch an online store for ebooks, which is expected to come in the first half of 2010. Google Ebook store will have half a million books initially in partner will few publishers. On the launch it is expected to have more than 500,000 books ready to be purchased from online stores such as Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. This interesting ebook store will be a strong completion to Amazon’s Kindle, which is today the most popular ereader.

4. Google Chrome OS -
Google Chrome Brower was a great hit and recently it also moved ahead of Apple Safari. And next in store we have Google Chrome OS – an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted only at netbooks. Google has planned to open-source its code, and will make Google Chrome OS available to users in the second half of 2010. According the giant, speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. This OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.

5. Google Drive – GDrive
Users usually have complained of not having enough space for them to store emails, photos, and files. With that in mind, Google came up the idea of Gdrive included in Google pack – online file backup and storage service from Google that integrated with Google services like Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, Google Calendars, and many others. GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device – be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone. Google Drive is highly anticipated and expected to be released in 2010 but it will only be an extended version of Google Docs. Instead of sending attachments, you’ll be able to upload files to Google Drive from Gmail.

What makes them so unique?

Google differs from most other businesses in that it costs the company practically nothing to give away informational products. This means that Google can readily engage in prolific product development experiments at low risk—not a situation enjoyed by many other companies.

How competitive are they in the international market?

Google remains the number one search engine throughout the world because of its company’s internationalist approach to business. Let’s face it – Google means big business for a lot of people. In fact, Google is big business, with many revenues streaming in from all parts of the world.

Google has had success in the international environment, including greater market share than in the domestic market, that every Internet company would covet. Google has enormous international market share. Google is dominant in most countries. Google has been remarkably successful internationally in large part due to the international word-of-mouth generated by their product and feature set.

References:
http://www.google.com.ph/
http://technology.globalthoughtz.com/index.php/10-toughest-competitors-of-google-in-2010/
http://www.honeytechblog.com/top-5-product-google-will-launch-in-2010/

Consideration Letter

2010-03-16T06:41:00.000-07:00

Sir Gamboa,

Due to the accident that I had in the school for the past few months, I wasn’t able to pass my assignments(1-6) on time. In regards to this, our class Mayor, Ms. Marren Joy Pequiro and I had a conformity that allows me to submit and posts my assignments in this forum with consideration.

MISii 6: Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach? (at least 1,500 words)

2010-03-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

Critical success factors (CSFs) have been used significantly to present or identify a few key factors that organisations should focus on to be successful. As a definition, critical success factors refer to "the limited number of areas in which satisfactory results will ensure successful competitive performance for the individual, department, ororganisation” (Rockart and Bullen, 1981). Identifying CSFs is important as it allows firms to focus their efforts on building their capabilities to meet the CSFs, or even allow firms to decide if they have the capability to build the requirements necessary to meet critical success factors (CSFs).

Success factors were already being used as a term in management when Rockart and Bullen reintroduced the concept to provide greater understanding of the concept and, at the same time, give greater clarity of how CSFs can be identified.

MAIN ASPECTS OF CSFs

CSFs are tailored to a firm's or manager's particular situation as different situations (e.g. industry, division, individual) lead to different critical success factors. Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSFs: the industry, competitive strategy and industry position, environmental factors, temporal factors, and managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view). Each of these factors is explained in greater detail below.

The Industry
An industry's set of characteristics define its own CSFs. Different industries will thus have different CSFs, for example research into the CSFs for the business services, health care and education sectors showed each to be different after starting with a hypothesis of all sectors having their CSFs as market orientation, learning orientation, entrepreneurial management style and organisational flexibility (Barrett, Balloun and Weinstein, 2005).

Competitive Strategy and Industry Position
Not all firms in an industry will have the same CSFs in a particular industry. A firm's current position in the industry (where it is relative to other competitors in the industry and also the market leader), its strategy, and its resources and capabilities will define its CSFs. For example, in 2005 Caterpillar defined a new strategy to aggressively grow revenues over the long term. As part of that new strategy, Caterpillar defined several CSFs specific to the firm which were (Gordon, 2005):

Organisational culture: "creating a culture that engaged employees, while focusing on safety and diversity"

Quality control: "accelerating the pace of quality improvement for its products, while focusing on improving new product introduction and continuous product improvement processes"

Cost focus: "implementing processes to become the highest-quality, lowest cost producer of our high-volume products in each hemispheric currency zone"

Other firms in Caterpillar's industry may or may not have the same CSFs, and are unlikely to have the same complete set.

Environmental Factors
These relate to environmental factors that are not in the control of the organisation but which an organisation must consider in developing CSFs. Examples for these are the industry regulation, political development and economic performance of a country, and population trends. For example, Ladbrokes, a UK bookmaker, will be establishing an international business in Italy where it has just acquired a business license, a requirement for foreign sports betting firms prior to establishing a business in the country (Citywire, 2007).
Another example of environmental factors affecting an organisation was the de-merger of Mondi, a paper and packaging firm, from its parent Anglo-American, a global mining firm. As Mondi had substantial assets in South Africa, it had to pursue a dual listing in order to meet the requirements of South African regulation, particularly in relation to its South African investors (Waples, 2007). Environmental CSFs for Mondi then in the short term include enhancing relations with the South African regulator and ensuring that requirements of South African investors are met.

Temporal Factors
Temporal factors are temporary or one-off CSFs resulting from a specific event necessitating their inclusion. Rockart and Bullen (1981) state that typically, a temporal CSF would not exist and they give as an example of a firm which "lost executives as a result of a plane crash requiring a critical success factor of rebuilding the executive group". However, with the evolution and integration of markets globally, one could argue that temporal factors are not temporal anymore as they could exist regularly in organisations. For example, a firm aggressively building its business internationallywould have a need for a core group of executives in its new markets. Thus, it would have the CSF of "building the executive group in a specific market" and it could have this every year for different markets.

For example, Bear Stearns has stated an aggressive expansion plan in Asia to grow existing and new business lines (Financialwire, 2007). As Bear Stearns grows its business over the next few years, a CSF in each year is to build its management teams for the business and the financial products that it seeks to expand.

Managerial Position
A final primary source of CSF is managerial position. This is important if CSFs are considered from an individual's point of view. Rockart and Bullen (1981) give an example of manufacturing managers who would typically have the following CSFs: product quality, inventory control and cash control. As examples, possible firms whose managers would have the stated CSFs mentioned by the authors include Heidelberg Cement (large global cement firm) and Tata Steel (Indian firm which now owns Corus Group, a UK steelmanufacturing firm) (Satish, 2007). In organisations with departments focused on customer relationships, a CSF for managers in these departments is customer relationship management (Mendoza et al., 2007).

HOW TO WRITE GOOD CSFs

In an attempt to write good CSFs, a number of principles could help guide writers. These principles are:

Ensure a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company – It was shown that CSFs have five primary sources, and it is important to have a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company in order to be able to write them well. These factors are customised for companies and individuals and the customisation results from the peculiarity of the organisation. This peculiarity stems from an organisation's strategy, current position, and resources and capabilities.

Build knowledge of competitors in the industry – While this principle can be encompassed in the previous one, it is worth highlighting separately as it is critical to have a good understanding of competitors as well in identifying an organisation's CSFs. Knowing where competitors are positioned, what their resources and capabilities are, and what strategies they will pursue can have an impact on an organisation's strategy and also resulting CSFs.

Develop CSFs which result in observable differences – A key impetus for the development of CSFs was the notion that factors which get measured are more likely to be achieved versus factors which are not measured. Thus, it is important to write CSFs which are observable or possibly measurable in certain respects such that it would be easier to focus on these factors. These don't have to be factors that are measured quantitatively as this would mimic key performance indicators; however, writing CSFs in observable terms would be helpful.

Develop CSFs that have a large impact on an organisation's performance – By definition, CSFs are the "most critical" factors for organisations or individuals. However, due care should be exercised in identifying them due to the largely qualitative approach to identification, leaving many possible options for the factors and potentially results in discussions and debate. In order to truly have the impact as envisioned when CSFs were developed, it is important to thus identify the actual CSFs, i.e. the ones which would have the largest impact on an organisation's (or individual's) performance.

FINDING INFORMATION FOR WRITING CSFs

For the organisation pursuing the CSF method, the foundation for writing good CSFs is a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the organisation. In order to do so, this requires the use of information that is readily available in the public domain. Externally, industry information can be sourced from industry associations, news articles, trade associations, prospectuses of competitors, and equity/analyst reports to name some sources. These would all be helpful in building knowledge of the environment, the industry and competitors. Internally, there should be enough sources available to management from which to build on their knowledge of the organisation. In most cases, these won't even have to be anything published as managers are expected to have a good understanding of their organisation. Together, the external and internal information already provides the basis from which discussion on CSFs could begin.

The information mentioned above can largely be accessed through the internet. Other sources which would be helpful, and not necessarily accessible through the internet, are interviews with buyers and suppliers, industry experts and independent observers.

As a conclusion, CSFs are used by organisations to give focus on a number of factors that help define its success. They help the organisation and its personnel to understand the key areas in which to invest their resources and time. Ideally, these CSFs are observable in terms of the impact on the organisation to allow it to have guidance and indications on its achievement of them.

CSFs can be utilised in both the organisation and the individual levels. Their identification is largely qualitative and can result in differing opinions in pinpointing them. Nevertheless, it is an approach that should be pursued as it provides value in giving due focus to a limited set of factors, which are deemed to be the most critical for an organisation or individual.

Reference:

http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/essays-and-dissertations/critical-success-factors.php

MISii 5: Automation vs. Rationalization of procedures vs. Business Reengineering vs. Paradigm Shifts

2010-03-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

In the spectrum of organizational change, which is the most radical type of change: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, or paradigm shifts? (you are expected to read an article about this question) .. at least 3000 words

Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, "rightsizing", new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organizational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates. Change should not be done for the sake of change -- it's a strategy to accomplish some overall goal. Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force, e.g., substantial cuts in funding, address major new markets/clients, need for dramatic increases in productivity/services, etc. Typically, organizations must undertake organization-wide change to evolve to a different level in their life cycle, e.g., going from a highly reactive, entrepreneurial organization to more stable and planned development. One of the prime and most basic mover for organizational changes to be done is the business cycle. This refers to the pattern indicated by an organization’s economic growth. Economic growth is aggregate and one of the basic standards is the gross domestic product. The gross domestic product is tracked in a monthly record and some of the most important decisions are made with inferences to the GDP result. The typical cycle of an organization/business follows the pattern of: expansion of above average growth, a peak, a contraction of below average growth and a trough or low point. Organizational changes usually occur during the lowest point of company sales so as to provide immediate, temporary or long term solutions to maintain the company afloat. But it isn’t limited to just that, sometimes it also happens even in the peak phase so as to maintain the highest point of sales and increase the sales capability. There are several ways to keep the company afloat in hard times and four are presented here: rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, paradigm shift or automation.

Rationalization of procedures is the application of efficiency or effectiveness measures to an organization. Rationalization can occur at the onset of a downturn in an organization's performance or results. It usually takes the form of cutbacks intended to bring the organization back to profitability and may involve layoffs, plant closures, and cutbacks in supplies and resources. It often involves changes in organization structure, particularly in the form of downsizing. The term is also used in a cynical way as a euphemism for mass layoffs. Rationalization provides the easiest way of achieving an immediate action and plan to keep the company due to the fact that its factors are so easily reached. One’s the alarm is ringing (low sales), massive data gathering is done and reports are made to the higher level officials. Then the brainstorming follows for an algorithmic plan to follow. The usual thought of this phase is to keep sales(even though it’s low), assess the productivity of the company to maintain or improve current trend, halt the plunge, find ways to improve current situation(short term solutions) and lastly seek ways for long term plans and growth. The systematic approach due to it being a basic rule and the quick repercussions after the decisions are made make this very viable yet as mentioned above, it makes the employees prone to lay-offs. This cutback in workforce would save maintenance costs but would cut productivity especially for labor-intensive businesses. Usually, the company opts for quality rather than quantity produced. Quality raises the price and can be sustained with low production and costs till the company takes its stride back. Same can be said of closing plants for these add to productivity but drastically increases maintenance costs and supply costs. The company also keeps its pocket tight and will take less risky investments to for gain.

Business process reengineering (BPR) began as a private sector technique to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. A key stimulus for reengineering has been the continuing development and deployment of sophisticated information systems and networks. Leading organizations are becoming bolder in using this technology to support innovative business processes, rather than refining current ways of doing work. Reengineering recognizes that an organization's business processes are usually fragmented into subprocesses and tasks that are carried out by several specialized functional areas within the organization. Often, no one is responsible for the overall performance of the entire process. Reengineering maintains that optimizing the performance of subprocesses can result in some benefits, but cannot yield dramatic improvements if the process itself is fundamentally inefficient and outmoded. For that reason, reengineering focuses on redesigning the process as a whole in order to achieve the greatest possible benefits to the organization and their customers. This drive for realizing dramatic improvements by fundamentally rethinking how the organization's work should be done distinguishes reengineering from process improvement efforts that focus on functional or incremental improvement. This follows a cycle: design to be, test and implement to be, identify processes and review, update, analyze or as is. As the name implies, this method heavily involves innovation rather than refining of current ways. This starts as a design to be as a result of brain storming then put to test. If it passes and gives satisfactory results, it is implemented or the processes are reviewed for another round of testing. This is both capital and labor intensive due to the arduous tasks that it implies but unlike the rationalization method which gives immediate yet shaky results, this one gives short term results and opens the doors for long term solutions and radical changes if the test is successful. But the tests would have to be done during the contraction period or else, the company can’t take taking a risk during the trough or lowest point of sales stage. A pre-requisite of this method is a proper record of monthly sales volume, discernment of the company’s needs over wants and proper assessment of the company’s condition, maintenance and productivity costs. This method also involves expertise and proper leveling of the market platform, its ins and outs and the cohesive teamwork effort for a better furnished test and appreciated results.

Paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change. This is usually brought upon by a radical, a highly optimistic person whose personality pervades others to follow his lead. Paradigm shift is not an end result but a means that is continually changing. The radical person who introduced it would eventually be proven as obsolete as time passes, or as better processes or means become available. The factors that bring this one about vary from person to person due in fact to the person’s temperament, educational background, attitude, convictions or influences. Paradigm shifts can happen at any stage of the business cycle but great risk to chance is given because the primary person must have the sufficient attributes to bring this one change. Because paradigm shift brings drastic changes, major factors become resistant forces to it. The fear of the unknown is one thing. Most people rely on the traditional and the well proven old ways rather than starting again at the bottom to re-familiarize things that are new. Another thing is the hierarchy of business platforms. The radicals are usually the new blood or the newly employed and the hierarchy works against them due to the pride and responsibility and satisfaction that a higher position entails. These difficulties are just a few of the many things to be faced if you are a radical but the hardest is rejection of idea. Usually, the radical loses heart in pursuing his subject any further due to a number of conflicts brought upon him and the fear of losing his job if he doesn’t keep his trap shut.

Automation is the use of control systems (such as numerical control, programmable logic control, and other industrial control systems), in concert with other applications of information technology (such as computer-aided technologies [CAD, CAM, CAx]), to control industrial machinery and processes, reducing the need for human intervention. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Processes and systems can also be automated. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the world economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level patter recognition, language recognition, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible.

Specialised hardened computers, referred to as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events. This leads to precisely controlled actions that permit a tight control of almost any industrial process. Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response. Service personnel who monitor and control these interfaces are often referred to as stationary engineers. Automation gives a variety of solutions depending on how it is utilized. Automation is the name and game of today’s generation. Many things that are thought of as impossible dreams are now being achieved. Automation also gives more satisfactory results due to the fact that it uses mathematical precision in its production. It also induces quicker production of goods and lesser errors due to the fact that human intervention is at minimal. It also gives more variability due to the wide options that it gives and greater control.

I, for my personal viewpoint after expounding on the four main points choose automation as the most radical type of change in an organization. The business cycle involves all four but differs them widely. The rationalization method is usually done during the lowest point of the monthly sales report to provide immediate result. But as expounded above, it usually just keeps the funds in tight check and the resources well managed but the production falls due to lay offs of the workforce/employees. Rationalization also works in just a short time to halt or put a brake on the slide the company incurred but on taking back the stride of the company, it won’t fair well. Business reengineering, on the other hand can not be done during the low periods due to the high risk that the experimenting period entails. It also involves extreme fund management to make the best out of the experiment and filter the results to analyze and finalize to be implemented. It also involves radical tinkering of the organization at large making displacements and changes that could make or break the company in taking the long run. Re-engineering also takes on stakeholder meetings or higher level men to confer with one another. Differences should be set aside and a single goal should be put forward but more often than not, re-engineering brings stakeholders to change stands and buy or sell portions of the company depending on the effect and finality of the decisive result made. Paradigm shift is offset due to the fact that it doesn’t necessarily provide a solution, only a dose of motivation to find better ways. Paradigm shift, out of the four runs more serious opposing forces because it plays mainly on the person’s viewpoint and temperament. Background and understanding of the problem at hand alters its effect from situation to situation. Automation on the other hand gives wider choices and has long term effects even if it is done during the organization’s lowest sales month. Automation involves capital but unlike business re-engineering, it has more credible results and brings a better yield. It also takes on the “limited resources” problem like rationalization but it doesn’t compromise productivity unlike rationalization that gives up the workforce. Automation requires maintenance but better than employees, it limits “human error” which becomes the main reason of faulty work by employees making the maintenance worth the pay. It only takes one presentation for automation to take the field unlike paradigm shift which most people are hesitant of. This era also supports the automation clearly by advanced marketing strategies and more sophisticated application due to technological advancements. And the current era of technological advancements make it obvious that the world is getting interconnected and we need technologies to harness such trend to keep up with this unprecedented change. Due to this automation, becomes a necessary tool to improve current economic standing and give the necessary stride to keep abreast with the changing economic platform. In terms of long term solutions, automation greatly increases market survivability and is a great help in advancing its own due to the fact that technology builds on itself for it to increase in capacity.

References:
http://www.quickmba.com/econ/macro/business-cycle/
http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/rationalization.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation

MISii 4: Preparing an IS plan for the University

2010-03-16T05:46:00.000-07:00

You were invited by the university president to prepare an IS plan for the university, discuss what are the steps in order to expedite the implementation of the IS Plan. (at least 5000 words)

MISii 3: What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan?

2010-03-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

MISii 2: What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan? (at least 2000 words)

2010-03-16T05:38:00.000-07:00

What should be the relationship between the business plan and information system plan is basically a homework assigned by my professor for me to really work hard on. Honestly, I am not born a business entrepreneur nor an information technology expert yet I have to try to present my views in this regards as possible as I can but by way of quoting some experts' minds and ideas about these issues that I have to deal with. Defining what a plan is, might be of great help to develop my upcoming statements about this matter. What is a Plan therefore? In my own definition and understanding, I simply define "plan" as a product of my thoughts on how to go about with something that I have in my mind. How to make it realized must be considered so I have to definitely write down the steps on how should I do it, what materials do I need, consider the procedure and eventually record some hypothesis and observations gathered from what I have done, try and maybe retry the process until I succeed or get what I expect to get out from what I intend to do. Making suggestions and recommendations might also be helpful in doing so.

Now, what about business? what does it mean? Thanks God for Wikipedia for it defined the term explicitly as
"A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.

The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan. " Wikipedia also displays the contents of a business plan as follows..

"Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks.

Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are calledstrategic plans.

Operational plans describe the goals of an internal organization, working group or department. Project plans, sometimes known as project frameworks, describe the goals of a particular project. They may also address the project's place within the organization's larger strategic goals.

Business plans are decision-making tools. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience. A business plan should contain whatever information is needed to decide whether or not to pursue a goal.

For example, a business plan for a non-profit might discuss the fit between the business plan and the organization’s mission. Banks are quite concerned about defaults, so a business plan for a bank loan will build a convincing case for the organization’s ability to repay the loan. Venture capitalists are primarily concerned about initial investment, feasibility, and exit valuation. A business plan for a project requiring equity financing will need to explain why current resources, upcoming growth opportunities, and sustainable competitive advantage will lead to a high exit valuation.

Preparing a business plan draws on a wide range of knowledge from many different business disciplines: finance, human resource management,intellectual property management, supply chain management, operations management, and marketing, among others. It can be helpful to view the business plan as a collection of sub-plans, one for each of the main business disciplines.
"... a good business plan can help to make a good business credible, understandable, and attractive to someone who is unfamiliar with the business. Writing a good business plan can’t guarantee success, but it can go a long way toward reducing the odds of failure."

Presentation formats
The format of a business plan depends on its presentation context. It is not uncommon for businesses, especially start-ups to have three or four formats for the same business plan:
• an "elevator pitch" - a three minute summary of the business plan's executive summary. This is often used as a teaser to awaken the interest of potential funders, customers, or strategic partners.
• an oral presentation - a hopefully entertaining slide show and oral narrative that is meant to trigger discussion and interest potential investors in reading the written presentation. The content of the presentation is usually limited to the executive summary and a few key graphs showing financial trends and key decision making benchmarks. If a new product is being proposed and time permits, a demonstration of the product may also be included.
• a written presentation for external stakeholders - a detailed, well written, and pleasingly formatted plan targeted at external stakeholders.
• an internal operational plan - a detailed plan describing planning details that are needed by management but may not be of interest to external stakeholders. Such plans have a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality than the version targeted at external stakeholders.

Typical structure for a business plan for a start up venture
• cover page and table of contents
• executive summary
• business description
• business environment analysis
• industry background
• competitive analysis
• market analysis
• marketing plan
• operations plan
• management summary
• financial plan
• attachments and milestones

Revisiting the business plan

Cost overruns and revenue shortfalls

Cost and revenue estimates are central to any business plan for deciding the viability of the planned venture. But costs are often underestimated and revenues overestimated resulting in later cost overruns, revenue shortfalls, and possibly non-viability. During the dot-com bubble 1997-2001 this was a problem for many technology start-ups. However, the problem is not limited to technology or the private sector; public works projects also routinely suffer from cost overruns and/or revenue shortfalls. The main causes of cost overruns and revenue shortfalls are optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Reference class forecasting has been developed to reduce the risks of cost overruns and revenue shortfalls.

Legal and liability issues

Disclosure requirements

An externally targeted business plan should list all legal concerns and financial liabilities that might negatively affect investors. Depending on the amount of funds being raised and the audience to whom the plan is presented, failure to do this may have severe legal consequences.

Limitations on content and audience

Non disclosure agreements (NDAs) with third parties, non-compete agreements, conflicts of interest, privacy concerns, and the protection of one'strade secrets may severely limit the audience to which one might show the business plan. Alternatively, they may require each party receiving the business plan to sign a contract accepting special clauses and conditions.

This situation is complicated by the fact that many venture capitalists will refuse to sign an NDA before looking at a business plan, lest it put them in the untenable position of looking at two independently developed look-alike business plans, both claiming originality. In such situations one may need to develop two versions of the business plan: a stripped down plan that can be used to develop a relationship and a detail plan that is only shown when investors have sufficient interest and trust to sign an NDA.

Open business plans

Traditionally business plans have been highly confidential and quite limited in audience. The business plan itself is generally regarded as secret. However the emergence of free software and open source has opened the model and made the notion of an open business plan possible.

An open business plan is a business plan with unlimited audience. The business plan is typically web published and made available to all.

In the free software and open source business model, trade secrets, copyright and patents can no longer be used as effective locking mechanisms to provide sustainable advantages to a particular business and therefore a secret business plan is less relevant in those models.

While the origin of the open business plan model is in the free software and Libre services arena, the concept is likely applicable to other domains.

Uses

Venture capital
• Business plan contests - provides a way for venture capitals to find promising projects
• Venture capital assessment of business plans - focus on qualitative factors such as team.

Public offerings
• In a public offering, potential investors can evaluate perspectives of issuing company

Within corporations

Fundraising
Fundraising is the primary purpose for many business plans, since they are related to the inherent probable success/failure of the company risk.

Total quality management
Total quality management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, call centers, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.

Management by objective
Management by objectives (MBO) is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they are in the organization.

Strategic planning
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis involving Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors and EPISTELS (Environment, Political, Informative, Social, Technological, Economic, Legal and Spiritual)

Now, what about the information system? My deep appreciation for Wikipedia is extended to this avenue for helping me make my search and my work so easy to understand, exact and meaningful as I quote.. " Information Systems (or IS) is historically defined as a 'bridge' between the business world and computer science, but this discipline is slowly evolving towards a well-defined science. Typically, Information Systems (or IS) include colleagues, procedures, data, software, and hardware (by degree) that are used to gather and analyze information. Specifically computer-based information systems are complementary networks of hardware/software that people and organizations use to collect, filter, process, create, & distribute data. Today, Computer Information System(s) or CIS is often a minor track within the computer science field pursuing the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their software & hardware designs, their applications, and their impact on society. Overall, an IS discipline emphasizes functionality over design.

In a broad sense, the term Information Systems refers to the interaction between algorithmic processes and technology. This interaction can occur within or across organizational boundaries. An information system is not only the technology an organization uses, but also the way in which the organizations interact with the technology and the way in which the technology works with the organization’s business processes. Information systems are distinct from information technology (IT) in that an information system has an information technology component that interacts with the processes components.

An Information System consists of four parts which include: procedures, software, hardware, and information or data, which are essentially the same. There are various types of information systems, for example: transaction processing systems, office systems, decision support systems, knowledge management systems, database management systems, and office information systems. Critical to most information systems are information technologies, which are typically designed to enable humans to perform tasks for which the human brain is not well suited, such as: handling large amounts of information, performing complex calculations, and controlling many simultaneous processes.

Information technologies are a very important and malleable resource available to executives. Many companies have created a position of Chief Information Officer (CIO) that sits on the executive board with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Technical Officer (CTO).The CTO may also serve as CIO, and vice versa. The Chief Information Security Officer(CISO), who focuses on information security within an organization, normally reports to the CIO.

In this regard, information system professionals and their associates have strong analytical and critical thinking skills to implement large-scale business models within any organization. Although solving problems within an organization is a common practice, IS professionals have the ability to automate these solutions via programmable technologies without violating ethical principles. As an end-result, IS professionals must have a broad business and real world perspective to implement technology solutions that enhance organizational performance.

Now that I have at least presented some facts and ideas about the business plan and information system as quoted from reliable source, it is hoped that a comprehensive grasp between the two concerns could at least be attained. Knowing some basic facts and nature about these two aspects could at least lead us to identify or point out what should be the relationship between them. In my own understanding, I could say that an information system plan is very important in going about the business plan. The way I look at it...the business plan is the body while the information system is the blood of the whole system.

MISii 1: Worthy to be called as IT professional, how do you see yourself 10 years from now, what are your strategies to get there?

2010-03-16T05:27:00.000-07:00

Everytime a homework like this is assigned, I feel like my world spins endlessly like a never-ending clock revolution. I then tried asking myself how could I make an essay with three thousand words? Could I really write one effectively? I really doubt it. But what can I do? I really got no choice or else I‘ll have this course failed. The first time I was asked about how do I look at myself ten years from now as an Information Technology professional made me a little anxious for what comes into my mind first and foremost is my age – how old would I be then? If I am nineteen by now then I would be twenty nine by then. Ahhh..what an age for an IT Professional. This is so funny for along with the thought is my situation, would I still be single or already married by then or a mother at that. Crazy thoughts. But all these keep me going for a while. My mind really lingers on what would I really be by then? Only destiny or fate could ever tell. However, the chance of thinking of living a very good life is not really out of the picture for this is the very reason why I take up this course because of a future vision that I have had before I get into this. My frailty which I know I am should not hinder me from the future that I’ve been hoping for. A successful Information System Professional. But in what Field? Could I be a manager, a director, a supervisor or what? Only fate could tell or could I be a simple employee or a failure? But negativity should not overpower me for I am put into this world for a great purpose that I one day should live life though heaven is on earth. Technology and sciences do navigate the world lately so whatever advancement this world brings should let me go and live my life through it. Honestly, the realization of my dreams really depends on how I make my life to be. If destiny is very good and is on my side then I will be working in a prestigious IT company or institution that oversees the national economy strata. This would be so amazingly impressive. Living in a modern designed, high class office with the most updated computers and sensitive computer-hardware and software around me would really make me feel I have succeeded and meeting with the head of offices of the country , brainstorming and discussing how to always cope with the pace and cadence of time especially on global competitiveness. I always envisioned myself to be dressed up in corporate attire wearing my stiletto heels. Ohh..forget the latest accident I had in this university…whew! Driving my own car and owning a house or a condo in a decent place would complete my dream. But the big question is, how could I do these? How could I make all these come true? Now , I remember a friend’s advice…dream and work on your dreams…More so, to make this dream comes true is for me to take actions on how to become one as I dreamt about. I have to be guided and knowledgeable enough by the following information as I quote, stated below…

Technical professionals must constantly improve their skills in a fast-moving field in order to be successful. Today's best programmers will find themselves obsolete if they rigidly stick to a single language, or if they don't augment their business-management skills. These three steps will provide a plan to ensure that any professional can constantly stay ahead of the curve.

Focus on Your Current Core Skills

No matter how much experience you have in your career trajectory, there are areas in which you can improve. Start with your job description, either the one that was officially given to you, or the one that actually describes the work you're doing on a day-to-day basis. Pick two or three skills in which you're currently proficient, but that could stand improvement. The honest programmer will rarely believe that improvement is impossible, even in his best field.

Find a way in which you can stretch your current skills. The ideal choice is to work on a side project which, at the start, you have no idea how you'll complete. Alternately, become active in online discussions about your platform and volunteer your time helping out people with less or equal experience. If possible (and with a suitably enlightened employer), you can make this self-improvement part of your on-the-job training, provided it doesn't eat into meeting your deliverables.

The same idea applies to non-technical skills, especially if you're in a position that may lead to a management spot. Many technical professionals are good with computers, but less so with people. If your job doesn't give you the opportunity to branch out on side projects in which you can build your communication and leadership skills, look to professional organizations and community non-profits, where a technical volunteer is frequently welcome.

Branch Out Into Upcoming Technologies

Unless you're nearing the end of your career arc, the lifetime of your career is almost certainly going to be longer than the durability of the languages you're working with today; the former is usually measured in decades, the latter in years.

The best way to evergreen your skill set is to spend time focusing on the fundamentals: techniques that can be applied to any kind of programming. Stack Overflow is an excellent online forum for both generic and specific programming skills, or read expert references such as Steve McConnell's Code Complete.

Technical associations are the best way to be exposed to the next year's changes to the technology you're working with today: Windows and Macintosh programmers and managers should join the developer networks run by Microsoft and Apple, respectively, and most other platforms have their own groups. The expense of professional dues and attending annual conferences is a small price for being in the lead of your field.

Work on Something You Love

Finally, all technical professionals should have some aspect of their work that they do out of sheer enthusiasm. The lucky ones get paid to do this, but there are ample opportunities in open-source and entrepreneurial programming to find something that keeps you professionally sharp. At worst, you'll have something to look forward to working on; at best, it may be the technology that becomes your career in coming years.

In addition to the strategies above, to be a Computer and Information Systems Manager in the future, as what I dreamt of to become, the following should be considered:

Significant Points

• Employment is expected to grow faster than the average for all occupations.
• A bachelor's degree in a computer-related field usually is required for management positions.
• Many managers possess advanced technical knowledge gained from working in a computer occupation.
• Job prospects should be excellent.

Nature of the Work

In the modern workplace, it is imperative that Information Technology (IT) works both effectively and reliably. Computer and information systems managers play a vital role in the implementation and administration of technology within their organizations. They plan, coordinate, and direct research on the computer-related activities of firms. In consultation with other managers, they help determine the goals of an organization and then implement technology to meet those goals. They oversee all technical aspect of an organization, such as software development, network security, and Internet operations.

Computer and information systems managers direct the work of other IT professionals, such as computer software engineers and computer programmers, computer systems analysts, and computer support specialists (information on these occupations can be found elsewhere in the Handbook). They plan and coordinate activities such as installing and upgrading hardware and software, programming and systems design, the implementation of computer networks, and the development of Internet and intranet sites. They are increasingly involved with the upkeep, maintenance, and security of networks. They analyze the computer and information needs of their organizations from an operational and strategic perspective and determine immediate and long-range personnel and equipment requirements. They assign and review the work of their subordinates and stay abreast of the latest technology to ensure that the organization remains competitive.

Computer and information systems managers can have additional duties, depending on their role within an organization. Chief technology officers (CTOs),for example, evaluate the newest and most innovative technologies and determine how these can help their organizations. They develop technical standards, deploy technology, and supervise workers who deal with the daily information technology issues of the firm. When a useful new tool has been identified, the CTO determines one or more possible implementation strategies, including cost-benefit and return on investment analyses, and presents those strategies to top management, such as the chief information officer (CIO). Management information systems (MIS) directors or information technology (IT) directors manage computing resources for their organizations. They often work under the chief information officer and plan and direct the work of subordinate information technology employees. These managers ensure the availability, continuity, and security of data and information technology services in their organizations. In this capacity, they oversee a variety of technical departments, develop and monitor performance standards, and implement new projects.
IT project managers develop requirements, budgets, and schedules for their firm’s information technology projects. They coordinate such projects from development through implementation, working with their organization’s IT workers, as well as clients, vendors, and consultants. These managers are increasingly involved in projects that upgrade the information security of an organization.

Work environment.
Computer and information systems managers generally work in clean, comfortable offices. Long hours are common, and some may have to work evenings and weekends to meet deadlines or solve unexpected problems; in 2008, about 25 percent worked more than 50 hours per week. Some computer and information systems managers may experience considerable pressure in meeting technical goals with short deadlines or tight budgets. As networks continue to expand and more work is done remotely, computer and information systems managers have to communicate with and oversee offsite employees using laptops, e-mail, and the Internet.

Injuries in this occupation are uncommon, but like other workers who spend considerable time using computers, computer and information systems managers are susceptible to eyestrain, back discomfort, and hand and wrist problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome.

Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement

Computer and information systems managers generally have technical expertise from working in a computer occupation, as well as an understanding of business and management principles. A strong educational background and experience in a variety of technical fields is needed.

Education and training.
A bachelor's degree in a computer-related field usually is required for management positions, although employers often prefer a graduate degree, especially an MBA with technology as a core component. Common majors for undergraduate degrees are computer science, information science, or management information systems (MIS).

A bachelor’s degree in a computer-related field generally takes 4 years to complete, and includes courses in computer science, computer programming, computer engineering, mathematics, and statistics. Most also include general education courses such as English and communications. MIS programs usually are part of the business school or college, and contain courses such as finance, marketing, accounting, and management, as well as systems design, networking, database management, and systems security.

MBA programs usually require 2 years of study beyond the undergraduate degree, and, like undergraduate business programs, include courses on finance, marketing, accounting, and management, as well as database management, electronic business, and systems management and design.
A few computer and information systems managers attain their positions with only an associate or trade school degree, but they must have sufficient experience and must have acquired additional skills on the job. To aid their professional advancement, many managers with an associate degree eventually earn a bachelor's or master's degree while working.

Certification and other qualifications.
Computer and information systems managers need a broad range of skills. Employers look for individuals who can demonstrate an understanding of the specific software or technology used on the job. Generally, this knowledge is gained through years of experience working with that particular product. Another way to demonstrate this trait is with professional certification. Although not required for most computer and information system management positions, certification demonstrates an area of expertise, and can increase an applicant’s chances of employment. These high-level certifications are often product-specific, and are generally administered by software or hardware companies rather than independent organizations.

Computer and information systems managers also need a thorough understanding of business practices. Because information technology is a central component of many organizations, these workers often must make important business decisions. Consequently, many firms seek managers with a background in business management, consulting, or sales. These workers also must possess good leadership and communication skills, as one of their main duties is to assign work and monitor employee performance. They also must be able to explain technical subjects to people without technical expertise, such as clients or managers of other departments.

Advancement.
Computer and information systems managers may advance to progressively higher leadership positions in an information technology department. A project manager, for instance, might be promoted to the chief technology officer position and then to chief information officer. On occasion, some may become managers in non-technical areas such as marketing, human resources, or sales because in high technology firms an understanding of technical issues is helpful in those areas.

Employment

Computer and information systems managers held about 293,000 jobs in 2008. About 16 percent worked in the computer systems design and related services industry. This industry provides IT services on a contract basis, including custom computer programming services; computer systems design and integration services; and computer facilities management services. Other large employers include insurance and financial firms, government agencies, business management organizations, and manufacturers.

Job Outlook

Faster than average employment growth is expected, and job prospects should be excellent.

Employment change. Employment of computer and information systems managers is expected to grow 17 percent over the 2008-18 decade, which is faster than the average for all occupations. New applications of technology in the workplace will continue to drive demand for workers, fueling the need for more managers. To remain competitive, firms will continue to install sophisticated computer networks and set up more complex intranets and websites. They will need to adopt the most efficient software and systems and troubleshoot problems when they occur. Computer and information systems managers will be needed to oversee these functions.

Because so much business is carried out over computer networks, security will continue to be an important issue for businesses and other organizations, and will lead to strong growth for computer managers. Firms will increasingly hire security experts to fill key leadership roles in their information technology departments because the integrity of their computing environments is of utmost importance.

The growth of computer and information systems managers should be closely related to the growth of the occupations they supervise. Among computer and information systems managers, job growth is expected to be the fastest in computer systems design establishments; software publishing firms; data processing and hosting companies; management, scientific, and technical consulting services; and healthcare organizations. Increased consolidation of IT services may reduce growth to some extent in other industries.

Job prospects.
Prospects for qualified computer and information systems managers should be excellent. Workers with specialized technical knowledge and strong communications and business skills, as well as those with an MBA with a concentration in information systems, will have the best prospects. Job openings will be the result of employment growth and the need to replace workers who transfer to other occupations or leave the labor force.

I know that being a computer and information systems manager is never that easy same with other occupations because there is no easy job without hard work. Being acquainted with the information above will help me achieve my dream to become a successful IT professional someday and attain my goals in life. Though we may have the option to choose our job, have and change as many jobs as we like, still, to have a better and permanent job will surely let us become successful. One of the mistakes people make is diversifying too quickly. This is true whether you are trying to build multiple streams of income or are just working on several different ideas at one time. The key is getting the first stream or idea up and running, producing good revenue, and having systems in place so it will keep running without you before going on to the next unrelated stream. It is important to focus on what you are passionate about first and then find a way to make money at it. Get in touch with your heart first, otherwise, the left side of your brain will rule out perfectly good ideas without having explored them. I believe that success comes easier and more quickly when you enhance your strengths and delegate in areas where you are weak. Your natural talents are those things you do so easily and naturally that you think they are no big deal. I noticed that many were overlooking their natural talents and thought if it is this easy for them, it must be this easy for everyone. This is rarely the case. The key here is to take your natural talents and abilities and strengthen them through education and experience. You are not born an expert at anything. It is something you develop.

Many people try to fit their dreams into their life and complain there are not enough hours in the day to make it happen. If you want your dream to become a reality, make it a priority. Otherwise, it will never be more than a pipedream.

References:
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition, Computer and Information Systems Managers, on the Internet athttp://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos258.htm (visited January 28, 2010).

http://www.ehow.com/way_5245901_strategies-technical-professional-21st-century.html

Mother’s Love

2010-02-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

A little boy came up to his mother in the kitchen one evening while she was fixing supper, and handed her a piece of paper that he had been writing on. After his Mom dried her hands on an apron, she read it, and this is what it said:

For cutting the grass: P5.00

For cleaning up my room this week: P1.00

For going to the store for you: P1.00

Baby-sitting my kid brother while you went shopping: P1.00

Taking out the garbage: P1.00

For getting a good report card: P5.00

For cleaning up and raking the yard: P2.00

Total owed: P16.00

Well, his mother looked at him standing there, and the boy could see the memories flashing through her mind. She picked up the pen, turned over the paper he'd written on, and this is what she wrote:

For the nine months I carried you while you were growing inside me:

No Charge

For all the nights that I've sat up with you, doctored and prayed for you:

No Charge

For all the trying times, and all the tears that you've caused through the years:

No Charge

For all the nights that were filled with dread and for the worries I knew were ahead:

No Charge

For the toys, food, clothes, and even wiping your nose:

No Charge

Son, when you add it up, the cost of my love is:

No Charge.

When the boy finished reading what his mother had written, there were big tears in his eyes, and he looked straight at his mother and said, "Mom, I sure do love you." And then he took the pen and in great big letters he wrote: "PAID IN FULL".

;)

Going Up! 7 Pointers to Lift a Bad Mood

2009-10-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

No one can live a long and healthy life without the will to go on; sometimes mood swings can make us feel that life is too much for us.

A bad mood not only gives you a gloomy outlook, it also lowers your immune function, leading the way to illness. Here are some suggestions to lift your mood, your spirit, and your health.

1. A Laughing Matter
"Laugh Therapy," pioneered by Norman Cousins, has turned out to have real substance. Research has discovered that laughter and joy boost immune functions, especially the production of the natural killer cells that help defend the body from illness and cancer.

Laughter also increases the release of endorphins - compounds that give you a sense of well-being - in your brain. Without a doubt, joyful people liver longer and healthier lives. So read your favorite comics, watch your favorite comedies, and laugh it up!

2. Amino Acid for Restored Mindset
When an imbalance or deficiency is creating a bad mood, the Europeans use supplements of a natural compound found in human cells to regulate mood and restore a healthy mindset. SAMe (S-adenosyl-L-methionine) is produced from methionine, an amino acid that plays a role in the production of uplifting neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine.

One study indicated that SAMe worked on patients who had unsuccessful results with conventional antidepressants. To get a boost from SAMe, take a supplement combining it with vitamins B6 and B12.

3. Hands-On Healing
Human touch increases the production of endorphins, growth hormone, and DHEA, all of which lengthen your life span and lower the negative impact of stress. Studies have found that patients who are regularly touched recover faster than those who are not touched. So give someone a hug and feel both of your moods improve.

4. Boost Your "Youth Hormones"
You don't need pills to flood your body with a rejuvenating flood of growth hormones. Research has found that doing squats and leg presses will greatly increase your natural production of the "youth hormone". Increased growth hormone translates to an elevated mood, among other physical benefits. Keep it up with weight training, knee bends, push-ups, and rowing.

5. Take a Bracing Breath
Breathing correctly is important for dispelling the toxins and wastes from your body; in fact, it is estimated that we expel only about 30 percent of toxins in our bodies through the bowels and bladder-the rest is all respiratory. Breathing is also a great way to clear your mind, boost your energy, and improve your mood. Practice deep, slow, rhythmic, breathing daily with mind-body disciplines such as tai chi, yoga, qigong, and meditation.

6. Smell the Joy
Research has shown that smell has a definite impact on our bodies and minds. When you stimulate the olfactory nerves inside your nose, you activate the limbic system of your brain, which is associated with moods and memory. This concept is instrumental to aromatherapy, a natural health tradition that makes use of the healing powers of plants with strong scents.

Aromatherapy recommends treating depression with jasmine, eucalyptus for exhilaration, and grapefruit to increase alertness and joy. Just put a dab of the essential oils from these plants on your temples, back of your neck, or acupressure points. Another option? Boil the herb in water and inhale the steam through your nose.

7. Feel Fine with Flowers
There is a reason that flowers are the traditional get-well gesture. Colorful flowers have a powerful influence on moods; they can uplift a patient's mood and even combat stress. One study found that during a five-minute typing assignment, people sitting next to a flowering bouquet were more relaxed than those who sat near foliage-only plants.

I hope these tips help the good feelings flow! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

Tips For Better Sleep

2009-10-18T21:42:00.000-07:00

Like millions of other Americans, I often have trouble with insomnia — either I can't fall asleep, or I awake prematurely and am unable to get back to sleep. The following sleep tips, compiled from various sources, may prove helpful to some of my fellow insomniacs.

Only use your bed for sleeping or having sex, not for reading, doing paperwork, watching TV, snacking, or making phone calls.
If you've been lying in bed but are beginning to fear you're not going to drop off, try some of these techniques: Count sheep or count backwards from 100 (one of my favorites) to stop yourself from thinking about the problems of yesterday or tomorrow; breathe deeply for awhile; or visualize some peaceful place.
If you can't get to sleep after lying in bed for 30 minutes or more, get up for awhile. What to do? Try reading something incredibly boring.
Develop a bedtime routine.
Keep regular bedtime hours.
Before bedtime, avoid tobacco and caffeinated beverages (not just coffee, but other drinks like tea, cola, and Dr. Pepper).
Avoid alcohol right before bedtime — a nightcap might get your mind fuzzy enough to put you to sleep, but such sleep may be interrupted by periods of awakening. By contrast, the stress-lowering effect of a drink with dinner may help to promote sleep later.
Avoid naps (or falling asleep in front of boring TV programs, as I do).
Try to get up at the same time every day rather than sleeping in on weekends.
Exercise every day, but not shortly before bedtime since exercise gets the adrenaline going.
If you use an illuminated clock for a wakeup alarm, place it where you can't keep looking at it to check the time.
Buy a firm mattress and keep your bedroom well ventilated (a cool temperature works best for me).
And you might also try some of these: a warm bath, warm milk, light bedtime snack, massage, or quiet music (which turns itself off automatically).
Use earplugs for extreme quiet.
If you have a painful joint or a headache, take a pain pill before bedtime (but be sure it doesn't contain caffeine).
Avoid stimulating reading or television shows late at night.

If the insomnia stubbornly persists, check with your doctor to make sure some underlying health problem (such as depression, anxiety, hyperthyroidism, heart failure, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) isn't keeping you awake. If all is well, you might ask for one of the several types of prescription sleeping pills that can be useful in the short term.

MIS 9: Identify an information environment of your choice and write an essay to address the following questions:

2009-10-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

Identify an information environment of your choice and write an essay to address the following questions:

• What should be your role within this environment?
• How can the principles of information organization and representation help you in performing this role?
• What are the challenges facing you in performing the role? How will you address these challenges?

"Deloitte" caught my focus.

It is a brand under which tens and thousands of dedicated professionals in independent firms throughout the world collaborate whose roles are to provide information on audit, consulting financial advisory risk management and solutions to every problem met in the real environment today. These people are likewise committed to helping those in need. People join together or contribute to local communities and for the environment. The gifts help make such better places to live.

Deloitte also covers the following:

Aerospace and defense, automotive, banking and securities, consumer products, health care providers, health plans, insurance, life services, oil and Gs, Power and utilities, private equity, hedge funds and mutual fund, process and industry products, real estate, retail, telecommunication, tourism hospitality and leisure, US State and federal government.

Representations of information are also evidenced through latest technology advents like the Podcasts system, video library which caters from the generation Xers to mature and baby boomers. These are tools that help operate at peak efficiency which present better results to clients, master new skills and be more successful.

Reputation for providing high quality services with integrity has earned its trust of the clients from all over the world for it also fosters ;professional development and career advancement.. Delivery of comprehensive solutions to complex challenges, applies ever-revolving range of innovative ideas, and practical strategies to help get needed results are inspiring motives that keep the company going.

The principles of information, organization and representation, basically guided the creation of its vision for the effective implementation and delivery of its high-quality service to clients particularly in its information aspects. Information is basically channeled through the use of highly sensitive, modern, updated information equipment in its various forms. Some are channeled through print media and books which offer insightful and practical guidance from some of the most respected professionals from around the world. Related studies, publications and surveys and reports are produced which contents are organized into distinct categories. Emails alerts are always on the go for the dissemination of all needed information. A collection of articles, white papers and information from ach member firms examining important business topics are also provided.

Lastly, part of the challenges faced in performing the roles are, challenging assignments, winning the team opportunities to learn and grow and explore career can never be discounted too as the driving forces to make one going and be successful!

COMDDAP 2009 Learnings/Reflections

2009-10-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

To Sir Gamboa..

Greetings!

Sir, I don't have an entry for this thread for i wasn't able to attend the said event due to continuous fever that resulted to my hospitalization after diagnosing of dengue fever that lasted a week of confinement with blood transfusion.

Hoping for your kindest consideration.

MIS 8: outsourcing the information systems functions of the school.

2009-09-30T08:29:00.001-07:00

Many institutions of higher education have been reluctant to outsource their IT functions for fear of losing control over a vital resource. This fear is even more pronounces when IT is an integral part of delivering a mission-critical product or service. In addition, colleges and universities go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from the commercial world by placing special emphasis on job security. Outsourcing is believed to undermine this principle.

Higher education may consider one or more forms of outsourcing IT operational services to deal with increasingly complex and time-sensitive demands. By considering the experiences of their peers and taking certain proactive steps, institutions can avoid common problems and ensure greater success when outsourcing IT functions.

In recent years, information systems have become increasingly crucial to the ability of an organization to compete effectively. However, the increasing importance of I/S has placed a strain on the ability of an organization to produce and manage information in a timely, relevant, and cost effective manner. Many organizations have begun to rely more heavily on external vendors to meet their I/S needs (outsourcing).

Relying on an external supplier for a resource may allow an organization to take advantage of economies of scale, thereby generating cost savings, but it also often means relinquishing some degree of control over that resource. Several factors must be considered by managers in order to make rational outsourcing decisions which do not adversely affect competitive strategy.

Over the last decade, the relationship between I/S and the competitive advantage of the firm has become an integral part of many organizations. While many believe that major gains in competitive advantage through I/S are increasingly difficult to achieve, the relationship between the two is still crucial to organizational survival. Surveys of I/S executives and general managers indicate that these managers believe that strategic planning and competitive advantage among the most important issues they face. Much of the literature in this area addresses the role of I/S in creating the competitive framework necessary to respond to opportunities rapidly and effectively. Little work addresses the issue of factors that may affect the ability of an organization to use I/S as a competitive weapon.

The following discussions will provide an assessment of the implications of the use of outsourcing with respect to the competitive advantage of an organization and will provide a framework within which outsourcing decisions may be made.

Despite the recognized importance of information systems as a competitive weapon, there is a gap “between strategic (I/S) planning and competitive strategy”. One reason for this gap is the relative lack of organizational knowledge about how to effectively utilize I/S as a strategic weapon.
However, even with better knowledge about strategic I/S, the capability to effectively use I/S meet to opportunities is still constrained by increasing demands and a shortage of I/S professionals. Backlogs of two to three years are not unusual in organizations today. There are too many demands and too few I/S professionals.

The need for information in strategic aspects of the firm places increased strain on the already overloaded information systems function. One response to the overload is the use of external vendors who are able to provide needed services in a timely, cost effective manner (outsourcing).

Organizations are spending more and more of their I/S budget on outside consultants both for basic functions and for more sophisticated applications. Outsourcing is projected to be a multi-billion worldwide industry by 1995, and includes activities ranging from facilities management and systems integration to hardware installation/maintenance and software development/support/training.

When an organization relies on an external entity to supply a critical resource, there may be a negative impact on competitive advantage. Organizations are beginning to see the detrimental effects on competitiveness caused by outsourcing the manufacturing function. If not properly managed, outsourcing the I/S function can pose an equally dangerous, although somewhat different, threat to competitive advantage. One study indicates that loss of control and competitive strategy are two reasons many organizations hesitate to use third party for business applications.
As suggested by Newman and Brock, whoever controls the “fabrication and flow” of information possesses a distinct advantage over the competition. “The goal of … (achieving competitive advantage) is to attempt to dominate the industry”. While industry domination may not always be the end result, I/S can serve as an important weapon in a firm’s competitive environment.

Forces of the Competitive Environment

Michael Porter has described five “forces” which combine to form the competitive environment. Porter’s description is broader than the traditional view of competition. While most people probably think of competitors as those businesses which sell a similar product and compete on a basis such as price or product differentiation, Porter includes forces such as suppliers and customers as competitors. “Competition in an industry is rooted in its underlying economic structure and goes well beyond the behavior of current competitors… The essence of formulating competitive strategy is relating a company to its environment.
A brief overview of Porter’s five forces is provided below.

Threat of Entry The threat of entry into an industry depends on the barriers to entry into that industry, such as economies of scale, capital requirements, switching costs, entrenched product differentiation (brand loyalties), and access to distribution channels. When the barriers to entry into an industry are high, the threat of entry is low and an existing industry player can compete more easily.

Intensity of Rivalry among Existing Competitors: The intensity of rivalry within an industry depends on the number of firms in the industry, on the balance of power among those firms, on the stability or growth of the industry market, and on the existence of barriers to exit from the industry.

Pressure from Substitute Products: Any industry can be vulnerable to competition from an industry that offers a product from which can perform the same function as its own product. The impact of substitute products is reflected by the industry’s overall elasticity of demand.
Bargaining Power of Buyers: A buyer group (customer) can be a significant influence in limiting the competitive advantage and overall financial return of a company or industry if the buyer group’s business constitutes a high percentage of the industry’s sales. Additionally, if the buyer group has “perfect” market information and low switching costs, the buyer group possesses similar influence.

Bargaining Power of Supplies: A supplier group can be a significant influence in limiting the competitive advantage and overall financial return of a company or industry.

Each of these five forces may affect the way in which an organization chooses to compete. There is also a general consensus in the literature that these forces relate to the use of I/S as a competitive weapon. For example, Newman and Brock outline a plan for creating an information system for competitive advantage based on Porter’s five basic forces. However, one force in particular becomes especially important when a firm considers outsourcing: the bargaining power of suppliers. If an outsourcer possesses an unequal amount of bargaining power in the outsourcer/client relationship, then the client organization may be limited in its ability to compete in its own marketplace.

Because outsourcing is still evolving, there are a few proven examples of this situation arising. However, the possibility does not go unnoticed. For example, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) is currently investigating reports of reciprocal relationships between banks and their outsourcers. There are reports of outsourcers having members on the board of directors of client banks, as well as, purchasing stock from and making deposits into these client banks. This situation could give rise to unequal bargaining power between banks and their outsourcers. Therefore, the FDIC is reported to be considering regulations on outsourcing in order to “improve the soundness of the banking industry and the competitiveness of the computer outsourcing industry”. While these occurrences may not be widespread, evidence of unequal bargaining power does not occur outside of the banking industry. Porter indicates that there are several ways in which a situation of unequal bargaining power may arise. Five of these ways are discussed below.

Importance of Resource

A supplier group is powerful if its product is an important input to the buyer’s business. Many organizations can not operate without ready access to their systems. In such an organization, it is important that information be provided in a timely, relevant, and cost effective manner. Failure to provide this information may inhibit the capability of recognizing and responding to opportunities in the marketplace.

Note that some firms use I/S not to attain competitive advantage, but as more of an operational support tool. Many retail stores, for instance, have adopted point-of-sale technology, but they do not necessarily use the available capabilities to the fullest. Some stores may only use point-of-sale simply to generate sales and receipts. The information system in this case may not be as “important” to the company as many other information systems are.

Operation or development of an I/S internally does not always insure that the quality of information will be enhanced. However, getting control of a vital resource to an external vendor, if not properly managed, may result in diminished quality. For example, there is a possibility that services provided by an external vendor may fail to meet quality standards such as timely delivery. In addition, there is little precedence for who has the legal liability for poor quality. Although outsourcing contracts are not lifetime commitments, they usually extend over a two or three year period; a long time to incur poor service. In addition, even if there is no substantial penalty for breaking the contract, premature termination results in costs to the client in terms of either finding another outsourcer or bringing the outsourced activities back in-house.

Outsourcing contracts are binding commitments, and if clients are not careful, outsourcing can result in greater costs and lower quality. “While the outsourcing field is still in infancy, experts say the deck is stacked against you. Unless the outsourcer is blatantly negligent, abuses information or has negotiated a particular liability in writing, there is very little for which outsourcing vendors can be held liable”. Thus, if the outsourced activity is organization-critical, and the supplier (outsourcer) mismanages the activity, the client’s business may suffer and there may be little retribution for the client. If a system is especially important to an organization, giving a high degree of control over that system to another party is risky.

Switching Costs

Unequal bargaining power may arise if a supplier has built-up switching costs. When a firm agrees to let an external organization develop or operate a business-critical information system, these characteristics may exist. There may be a substantial costs associated with switching a systems supplier. After significant time and pesos/dollars have been invested in one supplier system, it is very difficult and expensive for an organization to basically, “start over” with another supplier. Additionally, an organization may be somewhat “tied” to one supplier because of existing equipment or software, or because of organizational expertise with a particular system.

One company was recently penalized for breaking an outsourcing contract when the company moved from mainframes to client/server systems and the outsourcer could not support the new/client server architecture. In this case, the client chose to switch, but the costs were substantial. However, remaining with the outsourcer would have inhibited the firm’s ability to pursue a newer, perhaps more cost effective platform. If an organization’s users particularly comfortable with a particular operating system, environment, or application, then the users will certainly resist switching to another system – even if the other system is better.

Competition Among Outsourcers

A supplier may be powerful if the supplier group is dominated by a few companies and is more concentrated than the industry itself. When you purchase a system built on proprietary technology from a supplier, for instance, there may be absolutely no competition for that supplier for subsequent system purchases and changes. If your purchased system utilizes the supplier’s special-purpose terminals, for instance, you may have no other source from which to purchase additional terminals. Mainframe computing users experience this situation far more frequently than do microcomputer users, who generally purchase much more “open” systems.

Importance of the Client

A supplier is powerful if the firm in not an important customer of the supplier. If the firm is one of many customers, and in particular, if the firm is one of the smaller customers, the outsourcer will be less likely to respond to the firm’s individual needs and will possess greater bargaining power. Additionally, outsourcing is a secondary business to many firms and may thus be seen by them as less important than their primary business. In most outsourcing systems cases, the system and contract are large, and the business is in fact important to the outsourcer, thereby reducing the power that the outsourcer has in the relationship. Nevertheless, every supplier has some customers who are more important than others, and if you are a smaller, less important customer, then bargaining power is seriously reduced. Such an “insignificant” customer may have trouble getting prompt service or required changes to a system.

Threat of Vertical Integration

A supplier is powerful if it poses a credible threat of forward integration. Although there are very few cases of this outcome to date, there is always the danger that the outsourcing firm, having learned a great deal about the firm’s business through its contact with the firm’s information systems, will eventually enter the same business. When IBM contracted with Microsoft to write the original MSDOS, they certainly could not have foreseen the extent to which Microsoft would later extend their product offerings in both software and hardware. Microsoft is now a threat to enter just about any market, and has significant power in dealing with virtually any other company.

Outsourcing has become a big business that is expected to rapidly expand for the next several years. Of properly managed, outsourcing can be used to enhance an organization’s ability to use I/S in order to compete more effectively. However, before deciding to outsource, one issue firms should consider is the potential effect on the firm’s competitive position if outsourcing enhances the power of the supplier are (1) the importance of the outsourced activities to the client firm; (2) the cost associated with switching to another outsourcer either at the end of or during the current contract; (3) the extent of competition among relevant outsourcers; (4) the importance of the client firm to the outsourcer; and (5) the potential for the outsourcer to enter the client firm’s business through vertical integration. Any one of these factors could counteract the benefits of outsourcing and, in worse case scenario, could negatively affect the client firm’s business.

Outsourcing decisions must be made with care regardless of whether the outsourced activities are basic functions such as hardware maintenance or are critical to the firm’s strategic mission. However, firms should be especially careful if they decide to outsource activities related to their competitive position. Otherwise, they could encounter a variety of problems ranging from diminished quality to finding themselves actually competing with their outsourcer for business.

Reference:
http://jitm.ubalt.edu/IV-2/article4.pdf

MIS 7: ICT on the SONA of the President last 2 months, (July 2009)

2009-09-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

On the assumption that you heard/read the SONA of the President last last month, (July 2009), identify at least 3 areas related to ICT and identify how these areas can improve our quality of life.

In the recent State Of The Nation Address (SONA) of President Gloria Arroyo, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector was only briefly mentioned. However, I perceived some areas related to ICT and how these areas can improve our quality of life.

1. Country’s first automated Polls

The country has long targeted to automate its polls because the traditional manual voting process had created massive irregularities and spurred public violence.

As Filipinos, we hate knowing that we are being taken advantage of whether be it in terms elections or anything in general. We hate that we are being governed by unworthy people and people who are not deserving of the position. How then are they able to achieve such feats? We can’t be possibly sure but a rational explanation would be that we are being cheated in the elections. And thus, by applying this technology we are able to prevent this from happening. The users will benefit from it and the country as a whole because the integrity of the elections would be objectified and strengthened. The public will also be satisfied because faster results are guaranteed by the usage of automated and online elections. The government will also be benefited because lesser costs will have to be allocated for the elections in the long run. The initial costs might be high because of the need for technology and infrastructure upgrades and manpower training, but the succeeding costs in the next elections will be lower.

2. Philippine Cyber Corridor project

The Cyber Corridor is envisioned to be home to numerous cyberservice providers that supply expert services in various field of ICT like business process outsourcing (BPO), contact centers, animation, medical and legal transcription, software development, e-learning, e-entertainment and gaming, and other back office operations (e.g., finance and accounting, human resource development, etc.).

The Cyber Corridor promises a number of benefits. The first is job generation. Two million jobs are projected by year 2010 plus additional upstream jobs in training and construction, and downstream jobs in transport, food services, and infrastructure. The second is regional development -- from Baguio to Zamboanga. This will indeed change the face of the nation. The third is locator options. The important factors for consideration will be cost, lifestyle, scalability, retention. The fourth is dispersion of demand. This will minimize wage inflation and poaching/attrition.

Also, The Cyber Corridor will make the most of the Filipino’s edge in English communication and information technology skills. In this corridor, the English and information and communication technology skills of the youth give them a competitive edge in call centers and other business process outsourcing.

3. Creation of DICT

Pres. Gloria Arroyo made a final push for the creation of DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) in her last State of the Nation Address (Sona).

Speaking before members of both chambers of Congress, the chief executive urged the country to “have a Department of ICT” as she highlighted the huge role that the BPO sector has played in the local economy.

The establishment of DICT could further promote ICT in the country as a tool to create jobs, improve government services, and empower Filipinos.
To have a Department of ICT will reap the benefits of an e-enabled society, where everyone would have access to the Internet, where there are equal opportunities for jobs and livelihood, where there would be a competitive business environment conducive to investments, and where online government services are delivered directly to its citizens.

References:
http://iskwiki.upd.edu.ph/
http://www.cict.gov.ph/

MIS 6: Suggestions (technology, infrastructure, innovations, steps, processes, etc) in order for the internet connectivity of the Univ. be improved.

2009-09-30T08:02:00.000-07:00

If you were hired by the university president as an IT consultant, what would you suggest (technology, infrastructure, innovations, steps, processes, etc) in order for the internet connectivity be improved?

While the University compares favorably with other major universities, our increasing dependence on information technology has strained our existing infrastructure, and we are no longer able to provide acceptable quality of service to the University community. This affects our ability to recruit and retain faculty and students, as well as the productivity and effectiveness of all members of the campus community.

If we are to do more than merely catch up, we need to go beyond one-time, piecemeal upgrades to a new way of thinking about information and communication technology as central to everything that takes place in a university. If we act quickly and boldly, we can see great improvements within a year; within three to five years the university can regain national prominence in information and communication technology infrastructure.
Changes in attitude and organization, as well as basic infrastructure, will be necessary. The ideal is a distributed but coordinated infrastructure support program throughout the University, with the appropriate balance between local provision of services and support and central guidance on standards and policies.

Improvements in physical infrastructure are needed right away. The goal is to guarantee a high level of end-to-end performance, giving faculty and students the ability to move very large amounts of data rapidly from their desktops and labs to other points on or off campus, seamlessly, securely, and reliably. To meet this goal, we must rebuild our networks: in buildings, across campus, and to the outside world through upgraded Internet connectivity and Internet2 capability. Ultimately, no problem should be intractable because of insufficient computing power or network capacity.

In addition, because many of today’s high-end technologies will become tomorrow’s basic infrastructure, the University must continually invest in pilot projects involving emerging technologies—such as wireless networking—so that it is well positioned for large-scale implementation across campus of those technologies that prove successful and desirable.

As an IT consultant, I recommend that the University take these actions:

Human capital

 Through recruitment and in-house training, upgrade faculty, staff, and student skills and maintain those skills at a high level of competence.
 Invest significant additional resources in “side-by-side” IT training and consulting assistance for faculty, graduate students, and staff who use the technology in teaching and research.
 Make a long-term commitment to recruiting, training, developing, and retaining qualified IT staff in the current, highly competitive market.

Policy, governance and management

 Establish, streamline, or otherwise optimize management and governance mechanisms for information and communication technology to ensure that timely, informed, strategic decisions are made for the campus as a whole.
 Provide central guidance in the areas of financial control, legal issues such as intellectual property, security and risk management, adherence to the academic missions of the University, and coordination of overall services.
 Allow for local information technology services to be provided whenever possible through stronger capability and leadership within schools.
 Foster more effective planning and use of resources through continued unbundling of unrelated information and communication technology services and establishment of clear pricing guidelines, overseen by a “Campus IT Pricing and Services Commission.”

Security and quality assurance

 Create a campus-wide security and information assurance office, with appropriate representation from various information and communication technology administrative units, to rigorously and continuously review and assess security policies and practices.
 Establish a crisis response team, with representation from campus service providers, to coordinate University-wide response to potential technology-based attacks or mishaps.

Physical infrastructure

 Beginning soon and continuing until completed, upgrade in-building network infrastructure to support up to 1 Gbit/s connectivity to end-user locations, with minimum desktop performance of 100 Mbit/s.
 Immediately begin upgrading campus backbone infrastructure to provide backbone bandwidth capacity to support target 10Gbit/s aggregate service.
 Upgrade external Internet connectivity and Internet2 connectivity.
 Equip many more classrooms than at present with network access and a significant number of classrooms with multimedia access.
 Maintain and enhance the Media Union—an important resource for advanced experimentation in the use of new media—by keeping its technology at the leading edge and retaining professional experts who can use, demonstrate and teach the skills to apply that technology.

Advanced technologies and services for emerging technologies

 Invest right away in the following pilot projects and initiatives:
 A pilot initiative in wireless networking, with the eventual goal of campus-wide installation.
 Several advanced prototype demonstrations of services underlying research and instructional applications, such as high performance computing, very large data sets, management of massive, real-time data, collaborative technologies, and visualization and virtual reality technologies.
 A pilot “Voice over IP” initiative, taking advantage of technology that allows voice communication (what we now call telephone service) to be carried across data networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP).
 A high-performance end-to-end computing and networking initiative to take advantage of the full potential of emerging infrastructure and computing capabilitiles.
 Continue investing in initiatives that involve limited, early use of new and emerging technologies, with an eye to eventual campus-wide deployment.

How to speed up an internet connection?

Well, first we need to decide where you sit in the grand scheme of things. You will likely make your connection through one, or a combination of, a few options in internet service providers: Dial Up, Satellite, DSL, Wireless LAN, Cable Modem, FTTH/FTTP, or a dedicated service line such as T1/T3/DS3+. If you're on a T1 or better you're likely not complaining. Paying for such a service means that you should be getting the individual monitoring by your ISP to make sure you are getting what you are paying for. If you're not, switch providers. Fiber to the Prem/Home (FTTP/FTTH) subscribers are relatively new and from my experience well maintained. This brings us to the most likely candidates to look for connection improvement.

Dial Up- Your max: 56kbps (actually about 53kbps of true data after overhead). If you are on dial up, you are going to see 'slow speeds' by today's standards. The internet as most people know it has evolved around content, and content isnt small. One of two factors will most influence your connection quality through dial up- subscription rate in your area and phone line quality from your home to your provider. The sad news is, there is little you can do about either. If your area is over-subscribed (ie, more subscribers than your ISP can support connections to) you are likely going to see long waits connecting and/or frequent disconnects. Bug your ISP and hope they listen, or utilize secondary connection numbers (this may result in long distance tolls unless you are offered more than a single 800 number to dial into). The quality of your local phone lines, similarly, is going to be largely out of your control as well. If you find yourself removed from urban areas, there is a good chance you are still behind very old telephone lines. One rough, yet handy, test is to pick up a -corded- handset and listen for background noise. ANY clicking, humming, buzzing, or any other noise other than a pure dial tone is going to negatively influence the transmission of data over the lines.

The good news is, this gives you a defined disturbance that you can file a complaint with your TELEPHONE provider over. Potential culprits: poorly grounded electric fences (learned from experience), copper phonelines with cracked insulators, poor house wiring.

DSL- Ahhhh.. DSL. Your Max: 256kbps-24Mbps (variable by area) DSL is, generally speaking, either good or bad in an area. Assuming exceptional line quality and a relatively short distance to your area's gateway (DSLAM), the most common/significant factor influencing DSL speeds is subscription for an area. This is for a different reason than dial up however. DSL does not provide (even though they sell it essentially as such) a set data rate to each individual. Instead, they offer a 'pipe' of sorts of a set rate to an area. That rate is shared among all subscribers serviced by that 'pipe'. This is not a bad thing, unless the area is oversubscribed. Oversubscription can only be fixed by your ISP. Line quality and distance from your area's DSLAM will determine the number of useable channels through which you can communicate. As with dial up, this is somewhat fixed unless you can prove a case of poor line quality AND convince the owners of your local phone lines to improve it (may or may not be your DSL provider). With DSL you might still listen for clicks and humming, but utilizing the higher frequenices as DSL does means inaudible interferences may also (and more commonly) cause you a problem.

Satellite - Satellite internet is great if you are very remote, and can handle latency. There are several implementations, but if you are using satellite it is probably your only option (unless you have chosen it over dial up for *hopefully* higher bandwidth). Once you have been installed, about the only influences on your conenction speed are weather and alignment. Alignment is a quick fix, while weather is entirely out of anyone's control.

Wireless LAN- Wireless service, if offered in your area, will vary depending on several factors, most notably: distance to your access point, broadcast frequency of the access point, line-of-site obstruction (largely composition of obstructions) to access point, and number of subscribers. Increasing your connection quality centers around optimising the factors- get closer, remove obstructions (or move to a clear line of sight), or attempting to connect through a less populated node.

Docsis Cable Modem- Docsis Cable Modems can theoretically support up to about a 54Mbps connection speed.
Current plant and docsis standards, however, make those speeds less than reliably attainable. You should be aware of the speed to which your modem is provisioned (you will pay varying prices for different speed 'packages' through most ISP's). Most Cable Modem connections that have a problem see it somewhere from the Node to the house. The Node is the point in your neighborhood where the fiber (fiber optics passing light) network ends and is converted to an analog signal passed over a coaxial network (the copper cable you plug into your TV/DVR/MODEM) to your home. While there are countless variables that can impact the plant, you should be concerned about 4 signal levels: Transmit, Transmit SNR (Upstream Signal to Noise Ratio), Receive, Recieve SNR(Downstream Signal to Noise Ratio). You can view 3 of these levels by browsing to your modem's diagnostic page. To do this, point your browser to 192.168.100.1. This is the internal IP of your cable modem giving you access to a web interface displaying many useful statistics. The ones you want will be under the 'Signal' tab. Ideally look for:

Recieve Power: -5 - 5 dbmv
Transmit Power: 45 - 51 dbmv
SNR in both cases should be between 34db

These are ideal signal levels. While your connection might still be ok slightly outside of this range, you will want to get them balanced as close to the medians of the ranges if you are suffering slow speeds. A good service technician should know how to properly balance these levels. A second place to look while in the modem diagnostic page is at your event log. T3 and T4 timeouts are bad, and again should be addressed by a service tech. Some things you could consider if the appointment is a while out: keep your modem on a power purifier or UPS for clear, uninterrupted power; if your receive power is low, try removing unnecessary cable splitters; look for cracks, cuts, or exposed coaxial cable.

This is all geared towards directly improving you internet connection quality. Increasing your connection quality is the only way to increase your available bandwidth, and ONLY if you suffer from mentioned service degredations. Keep in mind that there are a number of PC tips that can keep your PC running at top speed, so as not to slow down your perceived connection speed.

Internet connection can be simple if you keep some basic ideas in mind.

For example, remove viruses and spyware from your system, and run a unprivileged user account for Internet access to slow down any future infections from the wild Internet. Viruses, stealthkits (also known as rootkits), and spyware will compete with or take over your Internet connection and prevent you from enjoying it yourself.

So it is important to scan your system routinely for such problems.

Do not compete with other computers for Internet access via a common (shared) connection such as wireless, broadband cable, or telephone service. Do not operate your main computer as a gateway for other household computers to access the Internet. Such shared connections cause the computers to compete with each other and additional delays are inserted for the computers to communicate with each other about sharing the Internet connection.

Telephone modem connections to bulletin boards and Internet access are limited by the Federal Communications Commission to slow speeds useful over voice-grade telephone wiring. So, if you upgrade from telephone modem access to another service such as wireless, broadband, or optical fiber, then such a connection will speed up in a noticeable way.

Where two local wiring options are available to the Internet from your computer, opt for the faster one. For example, a broadband cable modem can offer either Category 5 cable or USB cable connections (USB is faster than Category 5). Also, a broadband cable modem will be faster than a telephone modem, but the telephone modem can serve as a good backup capability, if desired.

If you can afford it, get an optical fiber connection to the Internet or possibly two-way satellite Internet access for highest connection speeds. Optical fiber run directly to the computer (with a small connecting device) has superior connection speeds for two-way networking that no other fielded technology can surpass.

Finally, learn to check your Internet connection speed online, and routinely check it to recognize when Internet congestion or other slowdowns are occurring.

Improve your Broadband Connection

Broadband Connection Speed

The only thing better than a fast broadband Internet connection, is a faster broadband Internet connection. Broadband Internet speed tests allow you to measure your current broadband speed against that of faster broadband Internet connections. There are various programs and software packages that you can purchase through which you can increase the speed of your Internet connection. You can also make adjustments to the hardware components(Upgrade processor speed and memory levels) of your system maximizing your computer’s broadband connection potential.
If you’re not looking to purchase additional software / hardware add-ons, there are manual “tweaks” that you can make to your system through which you can boost your broadband speed.

Increasing Your Broadband Internet Speed

Let’s assume that you access the Internet via a broadband LAN line. The following are 3 examples of ways through which you can manipulate your network settings and increase your broadband speed:

Reduce your network latency by increasing the request buffer size

Tests of LAN broadband connections have shown that delays can be caused as a result of the default request buffer size setting of 4356 decimal. As it is, it has been proven that an increase to a 16384 decimal setting can allow for better performance. (Such an increase is only possible if you have the necessary memory) By utilizing this slight “tweak,” you can noticeably increase your Internet speed and broadband networking capabilities.

Altering your network task scheduler

If you’ve encountered long waits when trying to open network folders, then this “tweak” is for you. One of the default settings with broadband networking is that when you open a network folder, your system performs a test of the networked computer in order to search for scheduled tests. By disabling this option for a LAN connection, you can increase your broadband networking speed.

Increasing your network transfer rate

Transfer rate, also referred to as throughput, refers to the speed at which data can be moved from 1 location to another. Network redirector buffers serve the purpose of optimizing your disk performance, and therefore allowing for the fastest possible broadband networking speed. If you increase the number of network redirector buffers functioning on your system, you could greatly increase your throughput. An Internet speed test following this change will yield noticeable results.

Internet Speed Tests

If you are looking to perform an Internet speed test for your system, there are various tools online through which you can provide your ISP, your area code, your connection type, etc., and receive a reading of your broadband speed compared to the top providers in your area. This allows for you to realize if your broadband speed is lacking in comparison to others, and work to maximize your broadband networking potential. This can be achieved through implementation of the above tweaks or through hardware upgrades and software purchases.

Checking Your Internet Connection Speed with Your Service Provider:
-Go to your Internet service provider's website and log into your account. Your Internet connection speed should be listed in the details of your account.

Checking Your Internet Connection Speed through a Speed Test Website:
-There are several websites on the Internet which will perform an Internet connection speed test check for you. Some links are:
www.speakeasy.net/speedtest
http://www.speedtest.net/
http://us.mcafee.com/root/speedometer/default.asp

Checking Your Internet Connection Speed in Windows XP:
-Right click or roll over your Internet connection icon that usually appears in the right hand bottom corner of your computer. (It typically looks like two computer monitors). The Internet connection speed will be displayed. For example it will say something like 100 mbps .
This can also be accessed from the control panel. When you are in the control panel screen select the network connections icon. Select the network connection that you wish to check and double click on it, a dialog box will then display your speed amongst other details.

Checking Your Internet Connection Speed in Windows Vista:
-Click on the Internet connection icon that usually appears in the right hand bottom corner of your computer. (It typically looks like two computer monitors).Then click on the connection that pops up. A dialog box called the network and sharing center will pop up. For whichever connection you are trying to view the speed of click the blue view status words and a box will open which details your speed amongst other connection details.
This can also be accessed via the control panel. Click the icon for network and sharing center and repeat as above.

References:
http://www.umich.edu/pres/inforev2/infrastructure/
http://www.helium.com/

MIS 5: Based on your adopted organization(s), identify and discuss barriers in their IS/IT implementation.

2009-09-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Many organizations have responded to the changing demographics of the workplace by implementing a variety of benefits and policies designed to help employees balance their work and non-work lives. These benefits and policies are instituted with the desire to create what has been termed as the "family-friendly" workplace. The terms "family-friendly workplace," "family-friendly company," and "family-friendly employer" refer to a workplace that, to some extent, acknowledges and responds to the work and personal/family responsibilities assumed by employees.

Barriers are defined as factors that prevent organizations from implementing, and/or factors that reduce the effectiveness of family-supportive benefits and policies after they are in place.

On our adopted organization, the barriers in their IS/IT implementation are the following:

Unemployment - While information technology may have streamlined the business process it has also crated job redundancies, downsizing and outsourcing. This means that a lot of lower and middle level jobs have been done away with causing more people to become unemployed.

Privacy - Though information technology may have made communication quicker, easier and more convenient, it has also bought along privacy issues. From cell phone signal interceptions to email hacking, people are now worried about their once private information becoming public knowledge.

Lack of job security - Industry experts believe that the internet has made job security a big issue as since technology keeps on changing with each day. This means that one has to be in a constant learning mode, if he or she wishes for their job to be secure.

Dominant culture - While information technology may have made the world a global village, it has also contributed to one culture dominating another weaker one. For example it is now argued that US influences how most young teenagers all over the world now act, dress and behave. Languages too have become overshadowed, with English becoming the primary mode of communication for business and everything else.

Barriers to strategy

Building on Porter's (1985) definition of strategy as, ' . . . the route to competitive advantage that will determine . . . performance', we can define an Information System Strategy as the analysis of the role that information systems can play in helping business units or companies to define a route to competitive strategy.

An information systems strategy brings together the business aims of the company, an understanding of the information needed to support those aims, and the implementation of computer systems to provide that information. It is a plan for the development of systems towards some future vision of the role of information systems in the organization.

Mintzberg (1987) suggests that strategy formation is a craft, rather than a science, and the process of crafting a strategy will involve negotiating various barriers. The barriers suggested in the literature include a number that affect any innovation, such as the hostile attitudes of management levels in a company, and the problem of recruiting appropriate staff. Some, such as the difficulty of measuring benefits, are more specific to IT implementation.

(The following data were from a study that had a survey of a big number of companies together with different financial services companies carried out to determine the extent to which the idea of 'information system strategies' was recognized in these organizations, how strategies, where they existed, were related to business aims, the elements of which strategies were composed, and the nature of barriers to design and implementation.)

Companies with a strategy were asked to identify the barriers either to setting up or implementing a strategy and to state whether the barrier had been major or minor. The results are shown in condensed form in Table 6. In Table 6, the ranking is based on the company citing a barrier as a major impediment. It is interesting, however, to look at the ranking that emerges when the change in proportions citing a barrier as a problem at set-up and implementation is used. This can be seen in Table 6, but is also set out in Table 7 for ease of reference.

Rank			% response
Set-up	Impln.	Barrier	Set-up	Impln.
1	3	Measuring benefits	30.5	32.6
2	2	Nature of business	27.7	34.8
3	1	Difficulty in recruiting	24.1	36.9
4	6	Political conflicts	23.4	19.9
5	5	Existing IT investment	22.0	24.8
6	4	User-education resources	17.0	29.1
7	11	Doubts about benefits	15.6	8.5
8	9	Telecommunications issues	10.6	11.3
9	7	Middle management attitudes	9.9	13.5
10	8	Senior management attitudes	9.2	9.2
11	10	Technology lagging behind needs	6.4	9.2

Table 6. Rank importance of barriers to strategy

Some of the changes shown in the table might be called logical shifts: for example, one might expect greater difficulty in recruitment when an organization actually needs to recruit, at the implementation stage; one might expect the lack of resources for user education to become more apparent when user education for the new systems needs to take place; and it is not surprising that technology lag makes itself felt after the initial optimism of the planning stage.

Rank	Barrier	% change
1	Difficulty in recruiting	+12.8
2	User-education resources	+12.1
3*	Nature of business	+7.1
3*	Doubts about benefits	-7.1
5	Middle management attitudes	+3.7
6	Political conflicts	-3.5
7*	Existing IT investment	+2.8
7*	Technology lagging behind needs	+2.8
9	Measuring benefits	+2.1
10	Telecommunications problems	+0.7
11	Senior management attitudes	0.0
* = Ties.

Table 7. Change in significance of barriers from set-up to implementation

Logical explanations for some of the changes are more difficult to find, however: the nature of the business (degree of diversification, rapidity of growth, etc.) is perceived as a major barrier initially and by an even greater proportion during implementation - what is the explanation for this? Perhaps it is that anticipated problems in this area actually materialize. Also, the attitudes of middle management assume a greater significance at implementation - this may be related to the lack of resources for user education and to the perception that technology lags behind needs, i.e., is failing to deliver anticipated benefits. Perhaps the smaller increase for senior management attitudes is related to the marked decline in the significance of political conflicts. The downward shift in political conflict may also be associated with the decline in doubts about benefits, although the difficulty of measuring benefits remains a problem.
When we examine the extent to which these factors are perceived to be either major or minor barriers, the picture shown in Table 8 emerges.

% response		Rank
Set-up	Impln	Set-up	Impln	Barrier
42.5	45.4	10	10	Senior management attitudes
53.9	52.5	6	6	Middle management attitudes
61.7	75.2	3	1	Recruitment
51.8	48.2	7	8*	Doubts about benefits
63.8	63.8	2	4	Measurement of benefits
49.0	49.6	9	7	Existing IT investment
59.5	72.4	4	2	User-education resources
58.2	59.6	5	5	Political conflicts
66.7	67.4	1	3	Nature of the business
49.6	48.2	8	8*	Telecommunications issues
39.7	41.8	11	11	Technology lagging behind needs

Table 8. Significance of barriers as either major or minor

From these various rankings, the difficulties in recruiting appropriate staff, the lack of resources to engage in user education, the nature of the business, and the difficulties of measuring benefits, emerge as the key features of IT strategies that are likely to cause problems for companies.

Further details of barriers and problems surfaced in the interviews. Even companies with a strong commitment were not immune to blind spots. For example, one interviewee said that:
...while there is this very strong belief in information technology, the top management have not believed in end-user computing... The main drive... is coming from DP because we see opportunities for managers, professionals, to help themselves. But it is not something for which there is a strong demand, and it is something which top management has treated as, you know, 'Why do you want to play with that, why don't you get on with your real job?'

The same person highlighted another inhibiting factor:
...another aspect of corporate style - the attitude to cost. The organization will quite happily invest millions almost at the drop of a hat in large-scale technology for big operational systems. I can get authority to spend a million or two on new hardware to improve the system in a ten-minute meeting with the managing director. And yet the same man will say, 'I might find a PC on the desk quite useful, but how much does it cost? [and then] 'It's not worth spending £2500 for a piece of junk on my desk.'

An interesting aspect of the recruitment problem was revealed in a financial services company which had a tradition of project teams directed by a senior manager from the user group and staffed mainly by users:
When we started all this there was quite a large army of part-qualified, or recently qualified, very bright, young actuaries, accountants, and so on, that we could pull on. An unfortunate effect of the systems we developed was that we reduced the need for the office to have a lot of those people - you didn't need lots of actuarial trainees with calculators doing these things any more. What we didn't see at the time was that we were cutting our own throats.
Now, over the last three or four years, that's been recognized in the office. Not just for computing reasons, but for all sorts of other reasons, it's starting to build up its professional input, its graduate trainees, again.

References:
http://www.smallbusinessbible.org/advan_disadvan_informationtechnology.html
http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/papers/1989ISstrat.html

MIS 4: Find three(3) URL's that talk's about "green campus computing" and suggest ways how the university can adopt this concept.

2009-07-18T04:30:00.000-07:00

Green Campus Computing

1. http://www.grist.org/article/rebooting-campus-computing/

This article talks about the UC(University of California) system greens electronics program. According to this article, the UC system got a little greener by passing an “Environmental Sustainability Policy” that includes provisions on energy, global warming, waste, and eco-friendly electronics purchasing.

Same with this school, our university can adopt their practices by following what they are adopting too. Some of these practices are the following:
• adopting guidelines for buying greener electronics
• finding better ways to dispose of e-waste
• initiating “takeback” recycling

Their school system will only buy products registered under the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, which computer equipment according to a set of environmental standards such as reduction in harmful chemicals, designs that are more easily recycled, and product longevity. I don’t know if we have this in our country but I guess we have our equivalent value for this. They also have integrated a "takeback" requirement in their purchasing contracts that will force electronic manufacturers to take care of used products, and they have also created criteria for responsible recycling for those vendors. This criteria includes a ban on both exporting the e-waste to developing nations and using prison labor in there country.

2. http://www.isc.uoguelph.ca/documents/061211GreenComputingFinalReport2006_000.pdf

This url is about Campus Computing and the Environment which is a Report of the Green Computing Task Group to the Information Services Committee(ISC) that identifies green computing policies and best practices elsewhere and benchmark the University of Guelph against these practices, recommends a campus awareness program, identifies energy conservation strategies and practices, examines the need for and nature of computing procurement guidelines, and identifies equipment disposal procedures.

The University of Guelph should take pride in its advanced E-Waste Disposal program and the high level of participation on campus. The well crafted Policy on Environmental Protection could be strengthened and enhanced by the further development of sustainability policies and possibly the establishment of a monitoring board. However, the top priorities identified by the task force involve education, assessment, and collaboration in the establishment of environmental awareness and practice on campus with regards to “green computing” throughout the entire lifecycle of the products.

Top Priorities:

Campus Awareness Program
1) Conduct a survey of the different target audiences on campus to:
a) Gauge awareness of and participation in current energy reduction practices and e-waste management practices.
b) Identify barriers to participation in the above practices.
2) Develop campaign based on social marketing theory, moving beyond information provision to motivation and persuasion techniques, identifying effective shortterm incentives and longterm behaviour modification strategies.
a) Develop a media strategy in conjunction with IT and Communications & Public Affairs (to be developed by Sustainability Coordinator).
b) Ensure campaign informs campus IT professionals of the support and services available through the Sustainability Coordinator and Purchasing in implementation of green computing solutions.
3) Measure and evaluate the success of the awareness program and the adoption of conservation or procurement practices by developing indicators and publicize the results.

Energy Conservation Strategies and Practices
1) Survey current power management policies and practices across campus.
2) Develop a plan, with IT personnel, to reduce the energy consumption of computers across campus.
3) Identify standard practices for implementing an energy reduction plan.
4) Coordinate participation of IT in an energy reduction plan with campus environmental policies and campus awareness programs.
5) Work with Physical Resources on the development of an energy consumption measurement program and energy indicators that break down energy consumption in a way that is easily communicable and relevant to the campus.

Computer Procurement
1) Establish standards and benchmarks with which to define a green purchasing policy for computers.
2) Define Purchasing policy complete with purpose, scope and procedures.
a) Developing a green procurement directive.
b) Construct terms and conditions for future tenders and contracts.
c) Incorporate labeling programs into a university green computing procurement initiative. Adopt standards issued by ecological standards associations and
identify their labeling programs, i.e., Energy Star, EnerGuide, Green Seal, etc.
d) Communicate procurement information resources within the University community via Purchasing Service’s website and provide resource links as
appropriate. Incorporate training and education of new environmental criteria and processes into existing client training program.
3) Report / update purchase activity in support of green initiatives, including progress to
date to Sustainability Coordinator for incorporation into campus awareness program.

3. http://www.it.utah.edu/leadership/green/index.html - Green Computing at the U of U.

This site is the University of Utah’s overview about Green Computing. This discusses some techniques and best practices for End Users of Green computing that are easy to incorporate.

With a number of desktop computers in use at the University, there is a great amount of power used and a great amount of both paper and electronic waste produced. Some simple solutions can help to reduce the impact of these deployments.

Paper Waste
• Print as little as possible. Review and modify documents on the screen and use print preview. Minimize the number of hard copies and paper drafts you make. Instead of printing, save information to disks, or USB memory sticks.
• Recycle waste paper, have a recycle bin at each community printer and copier location.
• Buy and use recycled paper in your printers and copiers. From an environmental point of view, the best recycled paper is 100 percent post-consumer recycled content.
• Save e-mail whenever possible and avoid needless printing of e-mail messages.
• Use e-mail instead of faxes or send faxes directly from your computer to eliminate the need for a hard copy. When you must fax using hard copies, save paper using a "sticky" fax address note and not a cover sheet.
• On larger documents, use smaller font sizes (consistent with readability) to save paper.
• If your printer prints a test page whenever it is turned on, disable this unnecessary feature.
• Before recycling paper, which has print on only one side, set it aside for use as scrap paper or for printing drafts.
• When documents are printed or copied, use double-sided printing and copying. If possible, use the multiple pages per sheet option on printer properties.
• When general information-type documents must be shared within an office, try circulating them instead of making an individual copy for each person. Even better, make the document electronically available to the audience and display it on a projector.

Electronic Waste
• Use the campus network where possible to transfer files. This avoids the need to write CDs or DVDs or use floppy diskettes.
• Use USB memory sticks instead of CDs, DVDs, or floppies.
• Use re-writable CDs and DVDs.
• There are hopes of the University Recycling program addressing e-waste in the near future

For Power Management, by using power wisely and enabling the power management features in your computer's operating system, you can save energy while ensuring that it's available to you when you need it.
Please consider the following:
• Turn off your computer and/or peripherals when they are not in use. Turning on and off will not harm the equipment. If you use a desktop printer, consider leaving it off when not in use.
• Don't run computers continuously unless they are in use continuously.
• Turn your computer off or set it to hibernate at night and on weekends.
• Disable screen savers on LCD monitors/displays - these are no longer necessary and use a lot of energy.
• Look for ways to reduce the amount of time your computer is using energy without adversely affecting your productivity. Follow the simple steps below to turn on computer and monitor/display power management features for Windows and Mac operating systems.

Energy Saving Settings
Energy saving modes can go by many different names, including Stand By (Microsoft Windows 95-XP), Sleep (Mac OS-X)/ (Windows Vista), and Suspend (Linux). When placed in this energy saving mode, aside from the RAM which is required to restore the machine's state, the computer attempts to cut power to all unneeded parts of the machine. Because of the large power savings, most laptops automatically enter this mode when the computer is running on batteries and the lid is closed.

Please make use of these best practices in order to develop a practice that best fits your individual needs. These suggestions are intended for users who manage their own computer.

MIS 3: Thoughts on automated elections with reference to the current situation

2009-07-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

My thoughts in the coming automated election is a probability of automated election fraud. In our current situation, automated election fraud like manual election fraud can be divided into two parts:

1. Retail cheating in the counting and preparation of precinct election returns.
2. Wholesale fraud in the transmission and canvassing at the municipal, district, city and provincial levels.

In my observation, fraud does not happen at the national level since there are fewer numbers to transmit and canvass, and there are many eyes focused on the process.

I will start discussing on how fraud can be done on the OMR (Optical Mark Reading) counting machines. Then we will discuss how fraud can take place in transmission and canvassing.

The Comelec claims that we finally have clean and honest elections because the 2010 elections will be fully automated.

The old cheaters who are computer illiterate and not in Comelec or with the automated system vendor may indeed find that their old tricks will no longer work.

Misreading and manual tampering of ERs (Election Returns) and COCs (Certificate of Canvass) will no longer be possible.

Now, the beauty of the old system of writing names of candidates voted for, public reading of votes in front of watchers and citizens, tallying and manual preparation of election returns was that it was visible (transparent).

At times there could have been fraud. But it was visible. Maybe sometimes due to guns and goons, people would just keep quiet.

In the new OMR system, voters will feed the ballot into the machine the next thing they will see is the printed election return. Whether their votes were properly counted they will not know.

Transparency at the precinct level is gone. Fraud can take place and the voters and watchers at the precinct will not know if fraud has taken place.

Even if the Comelec claims that the AES (automated election system) cannot be hacked and that the source code will be open for inspection, they do not make automated elections safe from fraud.

The Random House Encyclopedia defines hacking as unauthorized access to a computer, either for fun or for malicious or fraudulent purposes.
Hackers generally use microcomputers and telephone lines to obtain access.

In computing, the term is used in a wider sense to mean using software for enjoyment or self-education, not necessarily involving unauthorized access.

Hacking is not the problem and, therefore, spending time and money to prevent hacking is not very useful.

If only outsiders would rob you in your home then having grilled windows, special locks, alarms, etc. will ensure your safety. But if you live in the company of thieves, you can still be robbed. That is what the police refer to as an “inside job.

The greatest danger of fraud in the 2010 computerized elections will come from insiders in Comelec and computer vendors, not from outsiders.

In the old manual system, the hard copy of the precinct ERs were brought to the municipality to be read and entered in the statement of votes, which was visible to watchers. Watchers could compare the statement of votes with their own copies of the ER. Before the ER was read and added to the statement of votes, the authenticity of the ER was first verified.

This process took time and caused delays when lawyers argued, but at least citizens could see what was going on, hopefully make sure that votes were properly canvassed and at the very least be aware that frauds had taken place.

The Comelec AES has no safeguards against insider-initiated fraud. It assumes that the Comelec and the vendor officials, managers and staff are absolutely honest. It assumes that an automated system will not commit mistakes or fraud.

In the Comelec system, massive fraud can take place, but it will not be discovered until after the beneficiaries of fraud have been proclaimed.

Good luck with the election protests to the real winners who were defrauded!

Reference:
http://inquirer.net/

MIS 2: Based on the organization(s) that you visited, what do you think are the risks associated with business and IS/IT change?

2009-07-18T04:26:00.000-07:00

In recent years, especially because of the growth of online business, corporations have considered protection of there IS resources an increasingly important issue, for good reasons. Downtime, the time during which ISs or data are not available in the course of conducting business, has become a dreaded situation for almost every business worldwide. Such as the different Airlines in Davao International Airport, the online airline reservation business can lose hundred thousands per hour of downtime.

Other risks that the Davao International Airport consider are the Risks to Hardware and the Risks to Data and Application which are the most pervasive risks to there IS operations.

Risks to Hardware

While stories about damage to ISs by malicious Internet attacks grab headlines, the truth about risks to ISs is simply this: the number one cause of systems downtime is hardware failure. Risks to hardware involve physical damage to computers, peripheral equipment, and communications media. The major causes of such damages are natural disasters, blackouts and brownouts, and vandalism.

Natural Disasters

Natural Disasters that pose a risk to ISs include fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and lightning, which can destroy hardware, software, or both, causing total or partial paralysis of systems or communications lines. Floodwater can ruin storage media and cause short circuits that burn delicate components such as microchips. Lightning and voltage surges cause tiny wires to melt and destroy circuitry. In addition, wildlife and human error occasionally destroy communications lines; animals gnaw cables, and farmers occasionally cut wires inadvertently while tending their crops.

Blackouts and Brownouts

Computers run on electricity. Of power is disrupted, the computer and its peripheral devices cannot function, and the change in power supply can be very damaging to computer processes and storage. Blackouts are total losses of electrical power. In brownouts, the voltage of the power decreases, or there are very short interruptions in the flow of power. Power failure might not only disrupt operations, but it can also cause irreparable damage to hardware. Occasional surges in voltage are equally harmful, because their impact on equipment is similar to that of lightning.
The popular way of handling brownouts is to connect a voltage regulator between computers and electrical network. A voltage regulator boosts or decreases voltage to smooth out drops or surges and maintains voltage within an acceptable tolerance.
To ensure against interruption in power supply, organizations use uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, which provide an alternative power supply for a short time, as soon as a power network fails. The only practical measure against prolonged blackouts in a public electrical network is to maintain an alternative source of power, such as generator that uses diesel or another fuel. Once the general power stops, the generator can kick in and produce the power needed for the computer system.

Vandalism

Vandalism occurs when human beings deliberately destroy computer systems, bitter customers damage ATMs, or disgruntled employees might destroy computer equipment out of fear that it will eliminate their jobs or simply to get even with their superiors. It is difficult to defend computers against vandalism. ATMs and other equipment that are accessible to the public are often encased in metal boxes, but someone with persistence can still cause severe damage. In the workplace, the best measure against vandalism is to allow access only to those who have a real need for the system. Sensitive equipment, such as servers, should be locked in a special room. Such rooms usually are well equipped with fire suppression systems and are air-conditioned, and thus protect also against environmental risks.

Risks to Data and Applications

The primary concern of any organization should be its data, because it is often a unique resource. Data collected over time can almost never be recollected the same way, and even when it can, the process would be too expensive and too time consuming to recover the business from its loss. The concern for applications, especially if the applications are not tailor-made, should come second. All data and applications are susceptible to disruption, damage, and theft. While the culprit in the destruction of hardware is often a natural disaster or power spike, the culprit it damage to software is almost always human.

Theft of Information and Identify Theft

Sometimes the negligence of corporations and the careless use of technology, especially on public links to the Internet, create security “holes” or vulnerabilities. In one case, a young man named Juju Jiang installed a program called Invisible KeyLogger Stealth in public-use computers in 14 Kinko’s stores where customers can access the Internet. (Such Internet-connected PCs are also available in public libraries and airports). Keystroke logging software records individual keystrokes. For one year, his software secretly recorded more than 450 usernames and passwords, which he used to access existing bank accounts and create new ones. Jiang was caught when he used an application called GoToMyPC. Subscribers to the GoToMyPC service can use an application by the same name to link a PC from another PC and fully control the remote one as if they were sitting in front of it. Using the application , he remotely accessed and used one of his victims’ PCs. Using the PC at home, this person noticed that the cursor was moving “by itself”. The cursor opened files and subscribed to an online payment transfer service. Jiang pled guilty in court.

In 2005 keystroke logging was put to work online by a criminal ring on a massive scale. Spyware is used for several purposes. This time spyware was used to install a keystroke logging application that recorded communication with the victim’s bank, insurance company, or other financial institutions. The collected data included credit-card details, Social Security numbers, usernames, passwords, Instant messaging chat sessions, and search terms. Some of the data was then saved in a file hosted on a server that had an offshore-registered domain name. Sunbelt, a company that develops and sells antispam and security software, managed to obtain access to a victim’s computer and track what the spyware did. The company reported that the online thieves obtained confidential financial details of customers of 50 international banks. They keystroke logging software was small (26KB), and took advantage of Internet Explorer browsers. For example, it accessed the browser’s Protected Storage area, in which users often save their usernames and passwords for convenient automatic logins. Sunbelt recommended disabling this feature.

In some cases it is employees who unwittingly give away important information such as access codes. Con artists use tricks known as social engineering. They telephone an employee who has a password to access an application or a database, introduce themselves as service people from a telephone company, or the organization’s own IT unit, and say they must have the employee’s password to fix a problem. Employees are often tempted to provide their password. The “social engineers” then steal valuable information.

Once criminals have a person’s identifying details, such as a Social Security number, driver’s license number, or credit-card number, they can pretend to be this person. This crime is called identity theft. the imposter can easily withdraw money from victim’s bank accounts, put charges on the victim’s credit card, and apply for new credit cards. Since an increasing number of applications for such instruments as well as financial transactions are executed online, identity theft has become a serious problem.

Reference:
Oz, E. Management Information Systems (Fifth Edition)