Last Week

Knowledge Management (KM)

We watched a lecture by Gordon Jones considering Knowledge Managamenet (KM). An important question considering KM is, how can KM make organizations better.

Important topics considering KM includes:
What is Knowledge?
Can Knowledge be Managed?
How does organizations know things?
Who knows what you need to know?

Knowledge starts with the people and what they consider as knowledge.

Knowledge is:
- Messy
- Self-organizing
- Seeks communication
- Communicated through language
- Obeys no one master
- Reacts to how you use it
- Doesn't behave within restrictive rules
- Resist single solutions (silver bullets)
- Wants to get out

As the knowledgde wants to get out, the managers must know how to manage that knowledge. Further, knowledge changes through time. An example is how people communicate. Today people communicate throught the web, social networks, virtual teams and so on.

Managers and strategic planners hope to know what the knowledge is. If the data and the information are turned into the "right" knowledge, the future of the organization lays in the hands ofhow the organization knows and understand things.

Important for managers: How do you know who knows? How is the knowledge transmitted? One must understand WHY the knowledge is important to see the purpose of it.
For an organization to "win" today, one must KNOW what product to sell, how much it will cost and when and where to sell it.

Jones talked about Explicit vs. Tacit Knowledge.
Explicit Knowledge is contained in tangible and storable artifacts while tacit Knowledge is personell, context and specific. It is hard to formulate and communicate. It is important knowledge.

What is consistent today is that everything changes.

Week 13

After the attendance, every group had their presentations. Our group, The Bugs’ presentation considered Second Life and how to create a virtual web site and CRM system for a company selling robots.

The rest of the class considered announcements about the second Case Study, APA style and the final exam.

Week 12

Chapter 10
Enterprise Resource Planning and Collaboration Systems

Enterprise resource Planning (ERP) includes all departments and functions throughout an organization into a single IT system. This makes it easier for all employees to make decisions by viewing enterprisewide information on all business operations. ERP systems provide companies with consistency, and a method for effectively planning and controlling of all the recourses required to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders in a manufacturing, distribution, or service organization. Enterprise is the key word in ERP.

Core ERP are the traditional components included in most ERP systems. They primarily focus is on internal operations. Extended ERP components also focus on external operations. The four most common extended ERP components are; business intelligence, customer relationships management (CRM), supplies chain management and E-business.

It takes 8 to 10 months on average for a company to see the advantages or risks due to the ERP. ERP systems are const effective for most companies. However it cost much to implement the system. Considering the future, ERP places new demands on support and delivery information technology, in addition to the way business processes have to be designed, implemented, monitors, and maintained. The Internet and the adoption of the Internet is one of the single most important forces that reshape ERP’s architecture and functionality.

Week 11

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

SCM includes all the stakeholders involved in the movement of raw materials and product
Information flow among each stage in the stage
SCM makes business effective in the way that a raw product goes from the distributor and upstream to the suppliers’ supplier via the manufacturer, or in the other way, from the manufacturer to the customer’s customer via a retailer.

Supply Chain Components needs to monitor:
Plan – Source – Manufacture – Deliver – Returns

IT in Supply Chain Management
Integrates the processes using networking, hardware and software

Group Assignments
Hot Chocolate: Strategic plan for flexible SCM
Alpha 222: Levi Strauss and SCM. Wal-Mart is the pioneer to SCM system and they have a very strict SCM. A cross-functional team of key managers transformed Levi Strauss system to meet the Wal-Mart requirements.
Lucky #7: Finding Shelf Space at Wal-Mart. Again, this group mentions how good Wal-Mart’s SCM is. It is the world’s largest retailer and they use IT as a tool to create highly-sophisticated SC. They also talked about the seven principles of SCM.
The Bugs: Reinvent a new product using SCM. This was a difficult task since almost everything is going online. However we came up with fresh organic fruit to the customers.

After the group presentations we saw a video that Sabrina found on YouTube about Supply Chain Management. This video aimed to show how effective SCM can be and make business more efficient. The video was posted by The Supply Chain Company.

The groups went together to find positive and negative outcomes about SCM

Positive effects of SCM
Decrease of Cost
Loss of Jobs
Decrease of Pollution and Good for the Environment
Negative effects of SCM
Too much information sharing. Ex: Wal-Mart have too much information about the supplier
Effective and Efficiency (focus on the right things)
Technology might be too expencive

Week 10

Networks, Telecommunications, and Wireless Computing

Telecommunication systems enable transmission of data over public or private networks. A network is a communications, data exchange, and resource-sharing system created by linking two or more computers and establishing standards, or protocols, sp that they can work together.
Network basics: LAN – MAN – WAN

Networks are differentiated by: Architecture, topology, protocols and the media.
An IP address can find where that exactly computer is working from. Companies can use this tool to see where to advertise and where the target customers are. One example is Google which can find where people are searching for different products, and how many IP addresses that use Google.

Client/Server networks
A client: A computer designed to request information from a server
A server: A computer that is dedicated to providing information in response to an external request,
A client/server network: A model for application.

Media
Network transmission media refers to all the various types of media that is used to communicate between computers.
Wire Media can be used as physical paths to carry electrical signals. This is a good tool for people working outside their office and can connect to the Internet from different places.
E-business networks consist of virtual private network (VPN) such as the HPU Pipeline and value added networks (VAN.)

The wireless technology makes people work 24/7. It gives users a life connection via satellite or radio transmitters. This type of technology is growing. Bluetooth is convenient in creating a niche market for traditionally cabled devices. Radio Satellites is not as reliable as satellite, including wireless connections. Satellite connections can easily be broken compared to cables.

In the second part of the class we watched three videos considering RFID. RFID use active tags in the form of chips or smart labels that can store unique identifiers and relay this information to electronic readers. This is a decent tool for use in supply chain management for the product to go from production to the warehouse for thereafter to the retailer. We discussed in class the positive and negative effects of RFID.

Week 9

Chapter 6 - Databases and Data Warehouses
The group, The Bugs had at a discussion considering information cleasning and scrubbing. To increase the quality of organizational information and also the effectiveness of decision making, business must formulate a strategy to keep information clean. This is the concept of information cleansing and scrubbing, a process that weeds out and fixex or discards inconsistent, incorrect, or incompete information.

Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. is the world's largest provider of branded casino entertainment through operating subsidiaries. Since its beginning in Reno, Nevada 70 years ago, Harrah's has grown through development of new properties, expansions and acquisitions, and now owns or manages casino resorts on four continents. Information cleansing and scrubbing is therefore necesssary to keep te right information about its customer and be loyal to them. The Bugs first discussed this question before discussing other groups' questions.

What might occur if Harrah's fails to clean or scrub its information before loading it into its data warehouse?
- Information sent to wrong or non-existing address.
- Double entries could cause an customer to not get the benefits he/she is supposed to get, or cause the information to be inaccurate.
- A Diamond loyalty level customer which due to double registration is treated like the typical average customer.
- If a customer moves, but the address has not been registered correctly, information will be sent to wrong people.
- Not being able to create individualized marketing programs for each customer: then customer loyalty will decrease.- Decrease in customer visits
- Customers might not get the actual value of the Total Rewards program if they are registered more than once in the database.

Week 8

Mid term
For the final exam I would recommend to have a home exam. This is because I learn more of studying the topics and do research if I don't find the answer instead of having time pressure in class.

Week 7

Chapter 5: IT Architectures

A computer is an eletronic device operating under the aonctrol of introductions stored in its own memory that can accept, manipulate, and store data.

The lecture considered:
Hardware
Software

Hardware Components: CPU, primary storage, secondary storage, input devise (mouse, keyboards), output deveice (screen,) communication device

Advances in CPU Design
- Complex instruction set computer (CISC)
-Redused instruction (RISC)
Virtualization

Primary stoage: The computers main memory

Random Access Memory (RAM)
- Volatility: Memory is gone when the computer is shut down
- Cache: Memory can stay in the computer when turned off

Random Access Memory (RAM): AMD; IBS, Inte, Sun Microsystems
Read Only Memory (ROM): Flash memory, memory cards and sticks

Computer Categories: Clustering, parallel processing, mosaic browser
Computer categories: Laptops, tablet, PDA's, minicomputers, workstation, desktop, supercomputer, mainframe computer

Software basics - controls how the various technology tool work together along with the application software
- Utility Software
- Application Software

Enterprice arcxhitecture is important for our case study
- Enterprise architecture
- Enterprice architect (information, infrastructure and application architecture)

Backup and Recovery
Bacup is an exact copy of a system's information
Recovery is the ability to get a system up and running in the event of a system crash or failure
Disaster recovery: Ha increased the last years. Financial institutions now spend more then $6 million a year

Web services

APA Style Guide
The basics of the APA style is important for writing the assignment in the right format.
As doing PSOC 6005 this semester I've learned a lot of the basic stuff about headlines, references etc.

Week 6

Group presentations
T.A.S.K: Security Information Alpha Team: Eyes Everywhere Lucky #7: Information Security and great Granola Inc. A company has to consider these criteria when going online: Insiders, hackers, social engineering, dumpster diving, viruses, identify thefts, phising, elevation of privilege, hoaxes, spyware, spoofing, sniffer, package tampering Hot Chocolate: Thinking Like the Enemy - People and technology are the two primary lines of security defence Yankees: Stealing SoftwareOur Group, the Bugs: Ethical issues in the working place. One must always talk to the people involved when it comes to ethical issues.

Ethics
Considering ethics in the working place always have to deal with human beings. Ethics are the principles and standards that guide out behavior towards other people. Information ethics considers how individual determine to use information and how information affects them.

All organizations should build a corporate culture based on ethical principles that employees can understand and implement. Furthermore, ePolicies should also be addressed as new technology is easy to abuse. An ethical computer use policy contains general principles to guide user behavior. e-mail privacy policy details the extent to which e-mail messages may be read by others. There is a need for managers to create a corporate culture based on trust. Moreover, the best path for an organization planning to engage in employee monitoring is open communication about the issue.
When an organization has considered the First Line of Defence: The people it can start to consider the Second Line of Defence: The technology.

Class Lecture - Chapter 5
Video: Understanding security and risks
Regulation:
HIPAA: Health Regulation
SOX: Corporate Regulation

GLBA: Banking/finance
You have to take risks to be in a business. Good money comes from taking risks
- Operation risk
- Managing risks
CIA: Confidentiality Information Availability
RSA token

To be a successful business person, use have to have a knowledge or understanding of the risks and threads

Week 5

This Tuesday the Norwegian Counselor came to visit HPU, meaning that we had to be away for an hour. However, we presented The Bugs group presentation about e-Groceries and how they can improve to become user friendly on the Internet. One always need a nice web site which is easy for the user to navigate on. Furthermore, one must advertise on search engines, other web sites and/or optimilize their web page for the user to find it. It doesn't help to have a nice web site if nobody can find it.

Ethics
Ethics is important in every organization as it considers human being. Ethics and security are two fundamantal building block for organizatins.

HTML - Creating a Web Site
We learned the basic details on how to create a web site using HTML codes.

Week 4

Presentations
As usual the class started with group presentations about strategic decision making. Our group The Bugs presented “Discovering Reengineering Opportunities.” I found that interesting as it is an opportunity for a company to increase efficiency. We looked at how HPU Online registration can be improved and found that there are broken, redundant and antiquated situations that can be improved such as class such, current use of advisors and holds. Furthermore we saw that the tuition payment can be improved by reengineering.

E-business
The next part of the class was a lecture about e-business. I find that a very interesting and important topic today as the world get more and more dependent on new technology. E-business makes it easier and more convenient for people to communicate and work across borders.

E-business is the conducting of business on the Internet, not only buying and selling, but also serving customers and collaborating with business partners. The history of technology consists of disruptive and sustaining technology. With disruptive means new technology that destroys other products. iPod is an example that destroys the walk-man, disc-man etc. Sustainable technology on the other side makes better and improving products such as faster cars.

The evolution of the Internet has had an enormous impact on the communication between people, companies and countries.
WWW: a global hypertext system that uses the Internet as its transport mechanism.
Http: The internet standard that supports the exchange information on the www.
Intranet: Internalized portion of the Intranet used for information inside a company and is protected from the outside
Extranet; An intranet that is available to strategic alliances
Portal: A Web site that offers broad array of recourses and services like e-mails, discussion groups, search engines etc.
Kiosk: A publicityaccessible computer system that has been set up tp allow interactive information browsing.

E-business models
An e-business model is an approach to conducting electronic business on the Internet.
B2B: Business to business
B2C: Business to consumer
C2B: Consumer to business
C2C: Consumer to consumer

A business on the Internet includes benefits and challenges. Organizations must refocus their information systems and ways of working. People must be thought to use the new equipment in order for the organizational change to happen. Furthermore, having a service online demands good customer service. People do not trust the Internet as face to face conversations and the customer service must always be available. Moreover the web page must be user friendly and easy to find. Search engines such as Google are one way to make the web page visible.

Marketing on the Internet is one way to make the web page available.
On line ads, pop-up ads and assosiates programs are some ways the marketing departments of an online organization should consider. Moreover to search engine optimilization of the web page and pay per click advertisements on Googe are other ways of making the web available for potensial customers. As been working for a Norwegian search enigne for 3 and a halv years, I've learnd that it doesn't help to have an attractive web site if nobody finds it.

Week 3

Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat considers how the world has become smaller in the way that everything now is electronic. Globalization 3.0 started around year 2000. In the two other eras of globalization, the dynamic forces were countries and companies globalizing, the dynamic force in globalization 3.0 was the newfound power of individuals to collaborate and compete globally. Internet brought information into people’s homes and offices and it became easier to communicate across borders.

According to Friedman, the world has been flattened by the convergence of ten major political events, innovations and companies.
1: The New Age of Creativity: When the walls came down and the windows went up.
This age started the 9th of November 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. This opened people’s eyes to look at the world as a single marked.
2: The New Age of Connectivity: When the web went around and the Netscape went public
In the mid 1990’s the PC-Windows era had reached a plateau. People could create their own content in a digital form, but they were not able to send it around. The new age of connectivity started with the invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web
3: Work Flow Software. Work flow is a combination of the PC and e-mail which made this possible.
4: Uploading: Harnessing the power of community. This is the most disruptive force as it made it possible for communities to upload and collaborating on online projects such as the community-developed software movement,
5: Outsourcing: Y2K. Outsourcing means to take some specific, but limited, function that your company does, make another company do the same thing and then reintegrate their work.
6: Offshoring: Running with gazelles, eating with lions. When a company relocates a physical manufacturing for the advantage of lower cost, they are offshoring.
7: Supply-Chaining: Eating Sushi in Arkansas. Supply-chaining is how companies now can move a product from the supplier to the customer in an effective way.
8: Insourcing: What the guys in funny brown shorts are really doing. Insourcing is the opposite of outsourcing in the way companies, small or big have the opportunity to sell, manufacture or buy what they needed on the Internet and save money.
9: In-forming: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Web Search. People have all the information needed in their homes by a couple of clicks on their computer. Google is the most used search engine. In-forming is the individual’s personal analogue to uploading outsourcing, insourcing, supply-chaining and offshoring.
10: The Steroids: digital, mobile, personal and virtual. Everything from photography, entertainment, communication and word processing can now be digitalized.

However it must be considered that most of the world’s population are living in poverty. Developing new technology demands money.

Week 2

We started the class with group presentations. Our group presented Market Dissection which I found very interesting. It is always important for an organization to formulate a strategy before entering a market. One must know the target customer’s need and how the new product will fit in compared to other competing products. Other groups presented Roles and Responsibilities in IT Departments, How to capitalize your career, Rivalry among existing Competitors (business strategies) and IT decisions.

The lecture considered chapter 2: Strategic Decision Making.
There are many points which are important for organizations in strategic Decision Making. This in addition to problem solving in the electronic world includes large-scale, opportunity-oriented, strategically focused solution. It is a tool for organizations to make decisions. Further on the lecture dealt with how to bring people together with IT processes and how good solutions can make advantages for organizations.

When an organization has to make a decision it must consider its customers, partners, suppliers and employees. Models, which represents the reality and can calculate risks and uncertainties is helpful to get an insight into the business.

Decision Making, Problem Solving and Opportunity Seizing INformation Systems
Decision Support Systems (DSS): A way to models information to support managers and business professionals. There are three quantitative models that are often used in DSS: (1) Sensitivity analysis, (2) What-if analysis and (3) Goal-seeking analysis.
Executive Information Systems (EIS): Specialized DSS. It contains data from external and also internal sources. Artificial Intelligence (AI): Simulates human intelligence as for example the ability to learn and reason. This is an advantage as it makes sense of ambiguous and contradictory information.
Enterprise Recourse Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A helpful tool for organizations to manage all aspects of customer’s relationship with the organization. CRM increase the customer locality by having information about the customer’s buying behavior.
Business Process Reengineering (BPR): Analyze and redesign of workflow,
Supply Chain Management (SCM): Management of information flows between stages in a supply chain. There are four basic elements in a supply chain: (1) Supply chain strategy, (2) supply chain partners, (3) supply chain operation and (4) supply chain logistics.

Week 1

In the first class of IS 6100 we introduced each other in groups and then presented us for the rest of the class. We went through the syllabus and how the WebCT and the pipeline work. Thereafter we had an introduction on how to create a blog.

The class got a power point presentation about Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT). We learned the difference; Information Systems are organized by people within an organization. Moreover we looked at the history, the role of IS in business and types of IS to get an understanding about what IS is really about.

We also created a group consisting of Susanne, Hallvard, Katrine and I, or now known as The Bugs.