┼♥Green♥┼

MIS 2: Assignment # 9

2010-03-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

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)

More and more colleges and universities have begun to embrace technology and incorporate it into the classroom. From class scheduling to homework assignment submission, new technology is changing the way that schools handle most traditional aspects of the educational experience. At the most basic level, more teachers are embracing new tools, whether it’s an e-book lecture for their courses. Even more so, students are using these tools to thrive in their educational environment.

The development of technology is really increasing as the days pass by. New discoveries, inventories and of course new technology are coming and approaching. It is like a population in which everyday the number of people are multiplying due to new born babies. Information technology plays a big role in the IT industry. It is the heart of the company. Why? Its because without the system in it, there's no company at all. Its system gives the company the way it is to be done and gives a certain company and organization the simple way to the complicated things to do. And also it makes all the processes and transactions to be made easy, reliable and relevant. I did say it that way because I am one of the witnesses about the changes today. I know that we are all witness to that every change made and brought by the technology in our lives. Everyone can determine the difference before and now. Almost were automated. And that's why a name called “resistance” is present always if ever there's a change even in a little and big thing.

As what I have said, the world today is full of new discoveries, inventories and surprising events in which in all cases gives impacts to the people living in this era. IT Industry has been and still is and will remain as one of the fastest growing industries. IT field is the one of the few “most jobs to be created during the next 10 years” fields. Business organization cannot function without its IT in place. Banks, Retail, Insurance, Manufacturing, Hospitals, Governments, Universities, etc. Every company has an IT department. Business organization considers IT as their strategic strength. IT industry is the most dynamic industry. Largest percentage of innovation. IT Industry is the only one where many Fortune 500 companies are founded during the past 10 years like Google, Face book, eBay. IT industry is the only one where you can be incredibly successful yet starting from a garage. You cannot build an automobile company from a garage.

University is one of the things that are affected by the changes brought by technology. And by that it is making all the possibilities and trying to make a move in order to adapt always to the changes. USEP have IC department that offers BSIT and BSCS courses. BSIT and BSCS students have something to do in our world today because this two (2) courses covers about technology. According to wiki, technology deals with human as well as other animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its natural environment.

For me, one of the changes that have substantial impact in school services is the deploying of INIISYS. As what we all know, UNIISYS is the system developed by the graduate students of batch 2010 which gives a really big impact to all especially to the university. This system is a big system which consists of ten (10) subsystems. Namely, Agila, eGayd, eBenta, eDikit, ePahibalo, eHatag, eSkular, eTudlo, eSkedyul, and Alumnay. To understand what are the functions of each subsystems, let us try to define and know more each of this subsystems. First in the list is the Agila. You might be asking to yourself and wonder why Agila? Are the developers made a system about agila? The answer is NO. At first time I heard the title Agila, I also thought it that way. And I came to know the definition of it and its function when they start to explain about their systems. Agila is a Davao Geographical Information System. Meaning, it shows all familiar places here in Davao City. Second is the eGayd which is the university map in school. This helps the students, not only the students but also freshman especially visitors who will be entering the University school. It helps them know all the departments in the building where they are located. It will be very useful in a way it guide you where you want to go because this kind of subsystem have all the information you want to know about each buildings in the institution. Another subsystem is the eBenta. From the word itself, we can say that this certain kind of subsystem is for something like the act of bidding . eDikit, is also one of the subsystem that they made. It is a free online publication of creative and literary works. Another one is the ePahibalo, an electronic bulletin board. eHatag is the title they give to the one of the subsystem which is for file-sharing system. Also we have eSkular, a scholarship renewal system. Next one is the eTudlo which is an online tutorial-seeking system. This will be helpful to all the students who find difficulties in their subjects that needs to be guided more and explain more to understanding such kind of problems. eSkedyul is a schedule organizer for faculty and students in which it helps in aiding such conflicts between students and teachers that need to be verified just like for example about their schedule time. Last one is the Alumnay, a community for USEP graduates. /
From UNIISYS itself, it gives something really significant especially to the developers that enable them to share what they have learned from their Alma matter. This can give also to the university itself a great work that can be proud of as part of the technology trends.

Another thing that can have substantial impact in school services to the university is the automation of borrowing books. This is from the manual system to electronic. By this, transactions are made easier and faster which gives students benefits and hassle free. It also gives students satisfaction in a way that they don’t have to waste their time to just fill-up lots of paper so that they can borrow books. Automation of book borrowing gives substantial impact since it is one of the schools services that need to be in accordance to what the students’ needs and wants without any wasting of time and etc. By this automated book borrowing, the university will also be proud of since IC students will be the one to make it. It also gives a good feeling because this will be one of the results of studying in the university. It shows that the university is slowly coping with all the technology development that are going through this days. Since the technology is fast changing.

IT for Green. Some activities connected to IT harm the planet and the people on it in other ways as well. Certain manufacturing processes pollute the air, the soil and the water and deplete non-renewable resources. Such actions bring short-term benefits but they’re unsustainable over a longer timescale. Environmental sustainability or "green" initiatives are being adopted by businesses, schools, and government entities. Recycling and reuse programs, power reduction efforts, and changes in consumer purchases are increasing in popularity. IT can enable many green initiatives. Common green initiatives include the use of e-documents, reducing travel and teleworking. IT can also provide the analytic tools that others in the enterprise may use to reduce energy consumption in the transportation of goods or other carbon management activities.
Information technology is a central focus of the environmental sustainability movement, since many green initiatives target power and cooling usage. Green IT programs include goals such as switching to computers that use less power, employing efficient power management techniques, printing less, and using more centralized IT services.

Technology is the artificial enhancement of human power. It should make us stronger and smarter; however our demented community is discovering that it now has the opposite effect. Nuclear power has terrified and paralyzed its creators, while the improved cleverness and flexibility of our machines have caused social chaos and economic stagnation. Even the administration of our society is being taken over by clever machines. All large corporations are really computerized systems. The company officials the public sees are just the servants of these entities. From when the public initiate business, to when they pay the final bill, despite the human face presented to them, the affair is primarily conducted by an electronic brain. The communications they receive are generated automatically. The cheques, invoices and reminders are sent without anyone in the business being aware of the transaction. It often only receives human consideration in exceptional circumstances, such as when the bill has not been paid within ninety days. Then the machine will instruct an officer to take action.

MIS 2: Assignment # 8_

2010-03-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

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)

Here in this world, in all you do should have what we call plan. Like us, we are created by GOD because He has a plan to each and every one of us. In other words, the purpose in which we are going to do as we are living here on earth. It is also the same with all the things that we've seen and touch. They have also plan and purpose why they are here. Like in an organization, the people responsible for the establishments of that kind of an organization have plans and purpose why he/she built that.

Strategic information systems planning ( SlSP) is the process of deciding the objectives for organizational computing and identifying potential computer applications which the organization should implement. The primary objectives of systems planning were to improve communication with users, to increase top management support, to better forecast resources, to determine more opportunities for improving the MIS department, and to identify new and higher payback computer applications.

SISP involves understanding what the business goals are and identifying how IS can support those goals by delivering benefits. And to do that, each should understand what the business is all about. Includes also the strategies and purpose. Another thing is to know what IS does the company have. To know if it is effective or not and if it is meeting the business needs. Another thing to consider is what the technological opportunities exist and how could the new IT support the business. IS should be an integrated resource within the organisation which contributes to the organisation’s core competencies which may result in sustainable competitive advantage.

In an organization, strategic information systems plan (SISP) is really important because it is a tool in which the organization can attain their successful development and improvement of the system. By doing that, of course all the people involved should gather to discuss what to do. And one way to understand what will be doing is the guidelines which are the questions that everyone should talk about and discuss. For me, these are some of the questions to consider:

1.) What are the business mission, objectives, and goals?

Here, it analyses the processes for all the data needed. It will identify the data currently required to perform the processes. It describes the overall information system architecture comprised of databases and applications as well as the installation schedule of individual systems.

2.) What will be the expected output of this project you want to have?

After knowing their business mission, objectives and goals, it should be given an emphasis of what the company wants to have in a certain project and to know exactly the expected output or finish product so that it will be concentrated to what is its goal to achieve.

3.) Who are the persons involved in this project?

The PEOPLE Issue represents the readiness of the organization to absorb technology and awareness factors. This if overlooked can be a major cause of failure for any plan during the implementation phase. By this, everyone will know all the persons they will be working with or dealing with so that in times of there will be something wrong happen, they used to know who to ask or to talk to fix such problem.

4.) Does your company willing to provide sufficient budget either it will be big or small project?

Factors that become critical at the stage of doing projects are the availability of budget. All plans should be supported through a justification on the basis of cost savings, (but, of course) opportunity cost and strategic rationale like competitive advantage, perception etc. amongst other factors. Asking this is a big help because budget is the mainly needed for it is in here in which the project will be going through whatever it takes. It is the one in which why certain project will be establish or is established.

5.) Ready to reengineer?

It provides techniques or building enterprise models, data models, and process models. These form a comprehensive knowledge base which then creates and maintains information systems.

6.) How much is the allotted time for the project?

Persons involved should have to discuss about how much time will be consume to take for this project. By knowing this, each can have a managed time and how they will use it to finish certain project.

7.) How company deal with the changes?

Changes here means that everyone should study also of the existing TECHNOLOGY platform within the company, the infrastructure, the state and format of the data and information present. Along with all this, the governance of technology is also something to watch out for. It becomes important to manage the chaos that would naturally result from too many ‘technology’ cooks in a company. The standards, responsibility and approval structure in selecting and implementing technology choices have to be clear and specific in order to avoid pain of integration and obsolescence.

Questions above are just few to mention to have an effective strategic plan. Improved strategic information systems planning (SISP) is the most critical issue facing information systems executives. Because the purpose of SISP is to identify the most appropriate targets for automation and to schedule their installation, SISP has the potential to make huge contributions to businesses and other organizations. Effective SISP can help organization use information systems to reach business goals, a major objective of senior IS executives. It can also enable organizations to use information system so significantly impact their strategies. However, the failure to carefully carry out SISP can result both in lost opportunities and the waste of expensive IS resources.

MIS 2: Assignment # 7_

2010-03-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

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 :
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 one of the Internet business which provides really lots of information that is very helpful for us people living in this world. We are very lucky this time because of the technology, all the works are made easier and fast. All that we want to know around the world is attained by us by just a simple clicking of the mouse in the computer. Even talking to our loved ones wherever they are are made easier by the Internet. Before, I preferred to use yahoo to search but I find it less information than the Google. So, I frequently visited Google than yahoo.

Primary Competitors of Google:

1.Microsoft
2.Yahoo
Competitive Advantage:
Google is a company that has built a single very large, custom computer. It's running their own cluster operating system. They make their big computer even bigger and faster each month, while lowering the cost of CPU cycles. It's looking more like a general purpose platform than a cluster optimized for a single application.
While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.
This computer is running the world's top search engine, a social networking service, a shopping price comparison engine, a new email service, and a local search/yellow pages engine.
Ref: http://blog.topix.com/archives/000016.html

What makes them so unique?
One thing that has become evident to me is that Google grows in an organic fashion. Google develops tools that are internally useful and then releases them to the world. Google does not develop products to sell to the world. Google does not have external contracts, at least in the traditional sense.
Google is obviously best known for search and for ads associated with search. This is in essence Google’s one true product. It is the one feature Google developed for the outside world. When Google developed search it was no different from a small company. It is what Google has done since then that makes Google different.
Google doesn’t answer to any external power. They don’t have anyone they have to deliver a product to. There is no contract with a deadline. Due to not having any external dependencies, Google can continuously iterate over a product until it reaches a state of near perfection. It can stay in internal testing as long as Google wants and no one is going to care. See Gmail, Google Maps, etc. This then allows Google to use the perfect form of the agile process. Continuous iterations and testing and development, continues improvement. Then as Google sees fit, release the products. As they get better and better, more people use them and more money from ads come in. It’s beautiful.
It’s also unlikely any other company is going to be able to pull this off. Google hit on the formula for ads before anyone else. They now have such a commanding lead in that arena that to compete with them you need deep pockets of money of your own. That makes it difficult to launch a company and follow Google’s lead of avoiding external dependencies and having the near perfect product development process.
What new services do they offer?

As I searched Google, I found TiSP. Google's new FREE in-home wireless broadband service. TiSP in-home wireless broadband is:
Free, fast and highly reliable
Easy to install -- takes just minutes
Vacuum-sealed to prevent water damage
Google Voice, a new service which integrates phone features with Gmail. Google Voice will allow users to receive transcripts of voice-mail messages in their email in-boxes, which makes them searchable.

By just seeing Google's business in the web, specially the new services they offer, you can conclude that they are continuing to progress and have develop more and more features and services that could help many people in everyday activities of their life to make them easier for a certain task to undergo. This is one proof we can say that we are in the era of technology.

MIS 2: Assignment # 6

2010-01-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

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

Before identifying the steps for the critical success factors approach, let us take first an overview about this so that we are able to know what is that all about.

Critical Success Factors
The idea of identifying critical success factors as a basis for determining the information needs of managers was proposed by Daniel (1961) but popularized by Rockart (1979). The idea is very simple: in any organization certain factors will be critical to the success of that organization, in the sense that, if objectives associated with the factors are not achieved, the organization will fail - perhaps catastrophically so. Rockart (1979: 85), by referring to Daniel (1961), gives the following as an example of the CSFs: new product development, good distribution, and effective advertising for the food processing industry - factors that remain relevant today for many firms. The CSFs approach was combined with the value chain concept by Porter (1985) in order to form an information audit. Competitive advantage, following Porter (1985), was taken to mean, the ability of a firm to provide better value for its customers through lower prices, higher quality, or benefits not available elsewhere. The primary purpose was to test the idea that the information intensive areas of an organization could be identified within the value chain by using the CSF technique to indicate the critical areas and, thereby, enable the identification of corporate information needs. Corporate information needs were defined as those needs for information that must be satisfied if the organization is to achieve its strategic aims. The proposition was that those parts of the value chain that were perceived by organizational members to be of critical significance would be the areas in which effort ought to be concentrated so that the information systems could be effective.

Ref:http://informationr.net/ir/6-3/paper108.html

For most businesses, executives and employees spend a fair amount of time doing things which don't really make the business more successful. When you stop to consider it, there are only generally a limited number of areas - like sales or product development - which make your business succeed. With insight and analysis you can select these things, the critical success factors. Guaranteed: your business will succeed or fail depending on how you approach your unique set of critical success factors. Understanding these factors and paying 100% attention to them is a sure way to add power to your efforts and jump start towards a new level of performance. Here's how.

Step 1: Identify your critical success factors
The first step is to identify your special set of critical success factors. You may have thought this through in the past; you may think you know them intuitively. When asked "What matters?", many executives reflexively say things like sales, customers, people, or product development. These are all good answers, and they may be correct answers, but you will want to think deeper and broader. Below is a list to start you thinking. It is set in no particular order and contains only the most obvious factors. Review the list and circle areas you believe are critical to your enterprise. You may have to add other, more specific or subtle factors to the list to describe the critical influences on your business' success.
-Distribution - this could be direct sales, telesales, third- party sales, etc.
-Lead generation
-Customer satisfaction
-Referrals
-Research
-Product development
-Production, including quality, costing, run-rates, etc.
-Sufficient investment capital, sufficient working capital
-Customer support / technical support
-Quality assurance
-Sales process / sales life cycle
-Market research
-Customer education
-Sales compensation
-Recruiting
-Personnel retention programs
-Expense management
-Intellectual capital development
-Training
-Marketing communications
-Logistics
-Employee equity
-Executive leadership
-Training and development
-Corporate goals / strategic objectives
-Values and beliefs
-Mission/purpose
-Individual accountability
-Productivity & effectiveness metrics
-Internal communications
-Strategic and tactical planning
-Executive team
-Board of directors/advisors
Be specific when you identify your factors. Don't say "people" when the issue is recruiting, employee satisfaction, training or compensation. Don't say "marketing" or "sales" when the issue is lead generation. Test your assumptions by imagining a decline in a particular factor. How would that impact your business? Now imagine an improvement in that factor. How would that impact your business? In selecting factors, limit your list to no more than seven. Why seven? Cognitive theory suggests that human minds are efficient at juggling from five to nine separate trains of thought - the average and oft- quoted number is seven. Our plan is for you to keep your eye on the ball, you want to limit the balls to those you can keep your eye on.
Step 2: Establishing the measurements
Your next step is to establish a measurement scale for each critical factor. Some of these measures will be quantitative; some qualitative. Sales is an easy one: dollars of revenue measured against budget. Leads generated is also easy - how many? You can further break down sales by product and leads by sources, or you can stick to the consolidated numbers. Choose the measure which best reflects your understanding of how the issue affects your business.
Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measure your effectiveness in sales compensation? You could establish a compound metric which includes total compensation as a percentage of sales revenue, juxtaposed against goal attainment. Marketing communications is also difficult. One way to measure this is to subjectively assess the quality of your marcom pieces; you could also measure whether you have the total complement of marcom pieces you require. Or, measure whether prospects respond to your marcom efforts. Most likely you will combine all three to get one measure.
A final example is measuring your efforts in the area of your Board of Directors / Board of Advisors. Measures include: do you have one? Are all the board seats filled? Is the board effective for your intended purpose? Measuring the Board factor would likely blend each of these.
Step 3: Setting the baseline
Once you've established a measurement structure for a factor, the next step is setting a baseline. Each factor should be set against a normalizing scale ranging from 1 to 10. Subjectively this can translate into non-performing(1), poor (2-3) , mediocre (4-5), good (6-7), great (8-9), and outstanding (10).
If your sales run-rate is $10 million, determine whether that is a 1, a 5, or a 10. Your answer depends of course on whether you consider performance against budget, performance against stretch goals, or performance against "home-run-out-of-the-park" goals. If your baseline for Board of Directors is two unfilled board seats - is that a 5 (mediocre) or a poor (2-3)? Only you can decide. Although this ultimately is a subjective process, you want to make it as objective as possible.
Step 4: Set new goals
Next, create a "gap" between where you are - your baseline - and your target for that factor. You already have a sales plan, so your gap exists between your current revenue and your budgeted revenue. You may consider your baseline a 5, and your target an 8. Implicit in this 1- 10 scale are judgements about your intentions: will reaching your budgeted revenue put you at 8 (almost great) or 10 (outstanding)? Where do you want to peg your efforts? If you've assessed your employee training at a 4 (mediocre), are you shooting for a 7 (good) or a 9 (great)? You can see from this how your measurement structure and goal system will impact how you allocate your company's resources and energy.
Step 5: Closing the gap
You now have a baseline and a target for each factor. Between them they define a factor gap - your challenge is to close it. Each gap becomes the focus of a meditation which asks the question: What will close the gap between our current level of this factor and our desired level? What possible actions will raise that measurement? You may have intuitive responses to these questions, and when appropriate, trust your gut. If need be, back that gut response with research - but only when cost effective. (Sometimes the most cost effective research is implementation, particularly in simple matters.) Use any idea generation process you are comfortable with. Develop several possible initiatives to raise the level of that factor. With luck your ideas will work together and harmonize in terms of impact or implementation requirements. If you create competing ideas, select the best alternatives. Choose based on return on investment, required resources, scheduling conflicts, time to impact, total cost, and likelihood of success versus risk of failure. Depending on the specific factor, and the size of the gap, you may plan to close it in stages or shoot the gap all at once. You can launch one initiative at a time, or implement several initiatives in parallel. You may find my GamePlan!" methods useful in designing your gap-closing programs. Once you launch your gap-closing initiatives, continually measure your results. Report your progress to participants and stakeholders, and post it publicly.
Step 6: The Ben Franklin Rotation Program
As a young adult, Ben Franklin identified thirteen virtues he aspired to. In order to implement these virtues in his life he devised a "Plan for Self Examination", a program whereby he focused his attention, one virtue at a time, for one week at a time, rotating through the entire list four times a year. He kept a detailed log of the actions he took to develop the virtues in himself, along with his personal results. Paul Lemberg adapted Franklin's concept and called it the Ben Franklin Rotation Program. At any point in time, you will have in place a program for improving every one of your critical factors. But in any given week, your primary attention will be on only one factor. Using Franklin's principles, at the beginning of each week, focus your mind - or collective mind of your management team - on improving that week's factor. What new actions can you take, what new attitudes can you adopt, what new or renewed approaches are available - which will enhance your performance in that one specific area? Do that "thing" wholeheartedly for the entire week. Franklin also shows us how to track your progress in this venture. Create a score sheet detailing your Critical Success Factors. This sheet should detail each factor, its measurements, your current 1-10 rating and your target rating, along with your next action steps for improving that rating. Each factor also gets a weight, which enables you to develop an overall score. Each week, re-rate all the factors on the score sheet, and graph your progress. You may also graph the overall score. Publish the score sheet and the graphs. You can establish a reward system based on individual progress, or, using the factor weights, you can develop a bonus structure which incentivizes total progress. This simple system will focus your attention on improving each one of your critical success factors. With carefully selected factors, you insure both rapid performance increases and balance in your company.

Ref:http://www.paullemberg.com/criticalfactors.html

Successful people have the following:
*Good, well thought out plans.
*The passion for their ambitions.
*Willingness to extend time and effort.
*A willingness to sacrifice in order to achieve.
*The right attitude or the willingness to get the right attitude.

These Critical Success Factors are the most important keys that help to make up the arsenal of your average (or less than average) high achiever.
Some people are lucky that they inherently possess these traits, but even if you don't you can obtain and possess them for yourself. In conclusion,the solution to succeeding lies in many variables, but there are some that are ever present that account for the majority of accomplishments. By seeking to develop your own key factors you can proceed to emulate the feats of the successful or better yet overtake them altogether. These examples of critical success factors should highlight to you the very things that are needed to succeed and make valuable achievements, but they should also make you value the effort that must be exerted in order to accomplish your goals.

MIS 2: Assignment # 5

2010-01-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

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

What is meant by "Organizational Change"?
These are the companies that are undergoing or that have undergone a transformation. 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.

What Provokes "Organizational Change"?
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, entreprenueral organization to more stable and planned development. Transition to a new chief executive can provoke organization-wide change when his or her new and unique personality pervades the entire organization.

Spectrum of change
1. automation
2. rationalization of procedures
3. business reengineering
4. paradigm shift

Automation refers to computerizing processes to speed up the existing tasks or using the computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks. It improves efficiency and effectiveness. It also involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively.

Rationalization of procedures refers to streamlining of standard operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient.It improves efficiency and effectiveness.This follows quickly from early automation.

Business reengineering refers to radical redesign of business processes.Aims at eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive, bureaucratic tasks,reducing costs significantly and improving product/service quality.Involves radical rethinking.Can change the way an organization conducts its business. Strikes fear, its expensive, its very risky and its extremely difficult to carry out and manage.Develop the business vision and process objective. Identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback).Understand and measure the performance of existing processes.Identify the opportunities for applying information technology. And it build a prototype of the new process. Business reengineering includes BPR or the business process reengineering. Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service, and speed. And Business Process is a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of inputs and creates an output that is of value to a customer.

Paradigm shift refers to a more radical form of change where the nature of business and the nature of the organization is questioned. It improves strategic standing of the organization. It is the radical reconceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Here, deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge for which 70% of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail.

One of the most important things to know about building a new information system is that this process is one kind of planned organizational change. Frequently, new systems mean new ways of doing business and working together. The nature of tasks, the speed with which they must be completed, the nature of supervision (its frequency and intensity), and who has what information about whom will all be decided in the process of building an information system. This is especially true in contemporary systems, which deeply affect many parts of the organization. System builders must understand how a system will affect the organization as a whole, focusing particularly on organizational conflict and changes in the locus of decision-making. Builders must also consider how the nature of work groups will change under the impact of the new system. Builders determine how much change is needed.New information systems can be powerful instruments for organizational change.

The most common form of IT-enabled organizational change is automation. The first applications of information technology involved assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. Calculating paychecks and payroll registers, giving bank teller’s instant access to customer deposit records, and developing a nationwide network of airline reservation terminals for airline reservation agents are all examples of early automation. Automation is akin to putting a larger motor in an existing automobile.

A deeper form of organizational change – one that follows quickly from early automation – is rationalization procedure. Automation frequently reveals new
bottlenecks in production, and makes the existing arrangement of procedures and structures painfully cumbersome. Rationalization of procedures is the streamlining of standard operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so that automation can make operating procedures more efficient.

A more powerful type of organization change is business re-engineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified, and redesigned. Re-engineering involves radically rethinking the flow of work; the business procedures used to produce products and services with a mind of radically reduce the costs of business. A business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Some examples of business processes are developing a new product, ordering goods from a supplier, or processing and paying an insurance claim. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business re-engineering reorganizes workflows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive tasks (sometimes the new design eliminates jobs as well). It is much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized. Rationalizing procedures and redesigning business processes are limited to specific parts of a business. New information systems can ultimately affect the design of the entire organization by actually transforming how the organization carries out its business or even the nature of the business itself.

The still more radical form of business change is called a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the nature of the organization itself. Banks, for instance, may decide not to automate, rationalize, or reengineering the jobs of tellers. Instead they may decide to eliminate branch banking altogether and seek less expensive source of funds, like international borrowing. Retail customers may be forced to use the Internet to conduct all their business, or a proprietary network. A paradigm shift is akin to rethinking not just the automobile, but transportation itself.

Paradigm shifts and re-engineering often fail because extensive organization change is so difficult to orchestrate. Some experts believe that 70% of the time they fail. Why then do so many corporation entertain such radical change, because the rewards are equally high. In many instances firms seeking paradigm shifts and pursuing re-engineering strategies achieve stunning, order-of magnitude increases in their returns on investment (or productivity).

ref: http://alexandra.di.uoa.gr/courses/mis/docs/lecture6.ppt., http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/cem/bushait/cem515/term-papers/Business-Process-Reengineering.ppt. , http://www.ignou.ac.in/edusat/mba/ms-07/ms7b4.pdf

MIS 2: Assignment # 4

2010-01-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

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)

When we talk about IS plan, we all know that it is Information System Planning. And IS plan is a process for developing a strategy and plans for aligning information systems with the business strategies of an organization. It is the step-by-step plan to be able to meet the needs of an organization and to reach its goal and objectives. Many enterprises do not have model-based information systems development environments that allow system designers to see the benefits of rearranging an information systems development schedule. Consequently, the questions that cannot be answered include:
-What effect will there be on the overall schedule if an information system is purchased versus developed?
-At what point does it pay to hire an abnormal quantity of contract staff to advance a schedule?
-What is the long term benefit from 4GL versus 3GL?
-Is it better to generate 3GL than to generate/use a 4GL?
-What are the real costs of distributed software development over centralized development?
If these questions were transformed and applied to any other component of a business (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, distribution and marketing), and remained unanswered, that unit's manager would surely be fired! We not only need answers to these questions NOW!, we also need them quickly, cost effectively, and in a form that they can be modeled and changed in response to unfolding realities. This paper provides a brief review of a successful 10-step strategy that answers these questions.
Too many half-billion dollar organizations have only a vague notion of the names and interactions of the existing and under development information systems. Whenever they need to know, a meeting is held among the critical few, an inventory is taken, interactions confirmed, and accomplishment schedules are updated.
This ad hoc information systems plan was possible only because all design and development was centralized, the only computer was a main-frame, and the past was acceptable prologue because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always slipping, and information was not yet part of the corporation's critical edge.
Well, today is different, really different! Budgets are decreasing, and slipped schedules are being cited as preventing business alternatives. Confounding the computing environment are different operating systems, DBMSs, development tools, telecommunications (LAN, WAN, Intra-, Inter-, and Extra-net), and distributed hard- and software.
Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring.
Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information.
Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.
Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.
1.)Timely - The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
2.)Usable - The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
3.)Maintainable - The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
4.)Quality - While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
5.)Reproducible - The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.

The information systems plan is the plan by which databases and information systems of the enterprise are accomplished in a timely manner. A key facility through which the ISP obtains its Adata@ is the meta data repository. Their role within an organization perform functions in the accomplishment of enterprise missions, they have information needs. These information needs reflect the state of certain enterprise resources such as finance, people, and products that are known to the enterprises. The states are created through business information systems and databases.
The majority of the meta data employed to develop the ISP resides in the meta entities supporting the enterprise=s resource life cycles , the databases and information systems, and project management.

The ISP Development Steps
The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner.
The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.

1.)Create the mission mode - The mission model, generally shorter than 30 pages presents end-result characterizations of the essential raison d=etre of the enterprise. Missions are strategic, long range, and a-political because they are stripped of the Awho@ and the Ahow.@
2.)Develop a high-level data model - The high level data model is created in two steps: building database domains, and creating database objects. It is critical to state that the objective of this step is the high-level data model. The goal is NOT to create a low level or fully attributed data model. The reasons that only a high-level data model is needed is straight forward:1.)No database projects are being accomplished, hence no detailed data modeling is required,2.)The goal of the ISP is to identify and resource allocate projects including database projects and for that goal, entity identification, naming and brief definitions is all that is required for estimating. The message is simple: any money or resources expended in developing a detailed data model is wasted.The high-level data model is an Entity Relationship diagram created to meet the data needs of the mission descriptions. No attributes or keys are created. 2.1..) Create Database Domains- Database domains are created from the “bottom” leaves of the mission description texts. There are two cases to consider. First, if the mission description’s bottom leaves are very detailed, they can be considered as having being transformed into database domains. That is they will consist of lists of nouns within simple sentences. The other case is that the mission descriptions have been defined to only a few levels, and the lists of nouns that would result from the development of database domains have yet to be uncovered. A series of diagraming techniques created especially for data and the relationships among data is called entity-relationship (ER) diagraming. Within one style of this technique, the entities are drawn as rectangles and the relationships are drawn as diamonds. The name of the relationship is inside the diamond. Another style of ER modeling is to just have named lines between the entities. In this methodology, since the domain of the diagram is data, it is called the database domain diagram. The purpose of the database domain diagram is not to be precise and exacting but to be comprehensive. The goal is to have the reviewer say, “that's just the right kind of data needed to satisfy the required mission description.” When all the database domain diagrams are created, siblings are combined. Entities that are named the same are not presumed to be the same. Analysis must show that to be true. If not, one or both of the entities must have their name and definition changed. As the sets of sibling diagrams are merged from lower to higher levels, the quantity of commonly named entities on different diagrams diminishes. Diagram merger becomes optional when the use analysis of a common entity is subject to update (add, delete, or modify) in one diagram and is only referenced (read) in another diagram.2.2.) Define Database Objects - In today's parlance, a lucid policy-procedure pair is called a business object. When the policy procedurepair are completely defined within the language constructs of ANSI/SQL and is stored, retrieved, and maintained in an ANSI/SQL database through a sequence of well-defined states, the business object is a database object. The goal of database object analysis is to enable the definition of both the data structure and the data structure transformations that: a.)Installs a new database object in the database b.)Transforms a database object from one coherent state to another c.) Removes a database object from the database.Database objects are found by researching business policies and procedures. Database objects are however much more than just collections of policy-homogeneous entities. In fact database objects consist of four main parts: 1.Data Structure: the set of data structures that map onto the different value sets for real world database objects such as an auto accident, vehicle and emergency medicine incident. 2.Process: the set of database object processes that enforce the integrity of data structure fields, references between database objects and actions among contained data structure segments, the proper computer-based rules governing data structure segment insertion, modification, and deletion. For example, the proper and complete storage of an auto accident.3. Information System: the set of specifications that control, sequence, and iterate the execution of various database object processes that cause changes in database object states to achieve specific value-based states in conformance to the requirements of business policies. For example, the reception and database posting of data from business information system activities (screens, data edits, storage, interim reports, etc.) that accomplish entry of the auto accident information. 4. State: The value states of a database object that represent the after-state of the successful accomplishment of one or more recognizable business events. Examples of business events are auto accident initiation, involved vehicle entry, involved person entry, and auto accident DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs) involvement. Database object state changes are initiated through named business events that are contained in business functions. The business function, auto accident investigation includes the business event, auto-accident incident initiation, which in turn causes the incident initiation database object information system to execute, which in turn causes several database object processes to cause the auto accident incident to be materialized in the database.A database object is specified to the SQL DBMS through the SQL definition language (DDL). All four components of a database object operate within the “firewall” of the DBMS. This ensures that database objects are protected from improper access or manipulation by 3GLs, or 4GLs. A DBMS that only defines, instantiates, and manipulates two dimensional data structures is merely a simplified functional subset of the DBMS that defines, instantiates, and manipulates database objects. Database objects are completely defined within the database object column of the Knowledge Worker Framework. They are interfaced to the “outside world” by means of business information systems through SQL views. Each view represents the entire set of data, or some subset of a set of data that truly reflects a known value state of the database object. Culling out the database objects from 600 or so entities requires three simple questions:a.)Does the entity represent only a single value? For example, when the entity, Salary is really a business fact, it should be represented in the metabase as a data element, b.)Does the entity represent a collection of business facts from withing another context? For example, when the entity, Critical Contract Dates, represents multiple business facts, but within the context of the contract, the entity is a property class, and is stored in the metabase as such, c.)Does the entity represent multiple collections of business facts and is self-contained as to context? For example, when the entity, Contract, contains multiple property classes such as critical dates, signatories to the contract, terms and conditions, items and item quantities, and the like, the entity is a database object and is stored in the metabase as such.
3.)Create the resource life cycles (RLC) and their nodes - Resources are drawn from both the mission descriptions and the high level data model. Resources and their life cycles are the names, descriptions and life cycles of the critical assets of the enterprise, which, when exercised achieve one or more aspect of the missions. Each enterprise resource Alives@ through its resource life cycle. A mission might be human resource management, where in, the best and most cost effective staff is determined, acquired and managed. A database object squarely based on human resources would be employee. Within the database object, employee, are all the data structures,procedures, integrity constraints, table and database object procedures necessary to “move” the employee database object through its many policy-determined states. A resource might also be named employee, and would set out for the employee resource the life cycle stages that reflect the employee resource’s “journey” through the enterprise. While an enterprise may have 50 to 150 database objects, there are seldom more than 20 resources. Enterprises build databases and business information systems around the achievement of the life cycle states of its resources. Business information systems execute in support of a particular life cycle stage of a resource (e.g., employee promotion). These information systems cause the databases to change value-state of contained database objects to correctly reflect the resource’s changed state. The state of one or more database objects in the database is the proof that the resource’s state has been achieved. Resources become the lattice work against which database and business information systems are allocated. The table that follows presents the basic components of resources and their life cycles.
Resources and Resource Life Cycles
Resource - A resource is an enduring asset with value to the enterprise
Resource Life Cycle - A resource life cycle is the linear identification of the major states that must exist within life of the resource. The life cycle of a resource represents the resource’s "cradle to grave" set of state changes.
Precedence Vector - A precedence vector is a relationship between two nodes of different RLCs that indicates that the Target RLC node is enabled in some significant way by the Source RLC node.
RLC Matrix - The RLC matrix is the set of all resources, their life cycles and the precedence vectors among the nodes. Properly drawn the RLC Matrix resembles a PERT chart.
The ultimate goal of resource life cycle analysis is the identification and description of the major resources essential to the enterprise’s survival, and the ultimate goal of the ISP is the identification and accomplishment sequencing of the information systems projects required to implement the enterprise resources in the most effective manner possible.
3.1.)Determine the Resources - The enterprise’s product and/or service resources are defined; they may be either concrete or abstract. Ron Ross provides two guidelines to assist in resource identification: 1.Define the product or service that constitute the enterprise’s resources from the customer perspective.2. Define the resource as it is managed between the enterprise and its customers.
Characteristics of a resource are:
Basic - The resource must exist for the enterprise to exist
Complex - The resource requires development and management
Valuable - The resource must be protected, exploited, and/or leveraged by the enterprise.
Enduring - The resource exists beyond business cycles
Shareable - The resource is shared by different functions of the enterprise.
Structured - The resource can be described and organized
Centralized - The resource can be controlled and monitored centrally, even if distributed in creation or use.
Additional tests for resources are:
a.)The resource must be monitored and forecasted. By the time the resource is required, it is too late to be produced.
b.)The resource must be optimized. The resource is of such a cost that an unlimited supply is not possible.
c.)The resource must be controlled and allocated. The resource is desirable and necessary, and must be shared among functions of the enterprise.
d.)The resource must be tracked. Each stage of the resource is important to the enterprise, including its demise.
3.2Determine The Resource Life Cycles - The second step is to determine a life cycle for each resource. Each node in the life cycle represents a major state change in the resource. The state change is accomplished by business information systems and is reflected through the enterprise’s database objects (conformed into databases). The three figures below, developed in support of an enterprise database project for a state-wide court information system, shows the resource life cycles for Document, Case, and for Court’s Personnel.

4.)Allocate precedence vectors among RLC nodes - Tied together into a enablement network, the resulting resource life cycle network forms a framework of enterprise=s assets that represent an order and set of inter-resource relationships. The enterprise Alives@ through its resource life cycle network. A precedence between resources is created when a resource life cycle state, that is, a specific life cycle node, cannot be effective or correctly done unless the preceding resource life cycle state has been established or completed. A precedence arrow, renamed precedence vector, is drawn from the enabling resource life cycle state to the enabled resource life cycle state. The most difficult problem in establishing the precedence is the mind set of the analyst. The life cycle is not viewed in operational order, but in enablement order: that is, what resource life cycle state must exist before the next resource life cycle state is able to occur. This is a difficult mind set to acquire, as there is a natural tendency to view the life cycle in operational order. The test of precedence becomes: what enables what, and what is it enabled by what? For example, project establishment precedes the award of a contract. This does not seem natural, since a project would not operationally begin until after a contract is awarded. However, there must be an established infrastructure to create the project and to perform the work prior to the contract award. A workforce must be in place to perform work along with the ability to assign work to the employee on the contract, and the ability to bill the customer. Therefore, the project enables the contract. There are three possible meanings for enablement. That is, a resource life cycle state precedes another resource life cycle state because: 1. The accomplishment of the preceding resource life cycle state saves money. 2. The resource life cycle state leads to rapid development of another resource life cycle state 3. The resource life cycle state permits faster, more convenient accomplishment of another resource life cycle state.If one or more indicators exists, then a precedence vector should be created. Two alternatives exist relative to the existence of the enterprise: newly established or existing. Experience shows the preferred perspective is that of an already-existing enterprise. RLC states may or may not occur during a life cycle, or events may occur in parallel. For example, an employee may receive an award, but then again, may never receive an award. An employee may work before and after a security clearance is granted. The strategy to deal with parallel or optional RLC states is to create a single stream of RLC states in which none are parallel or optional by “pushing down” the parallel or optional RLC states to a lower level.
5.)Allocate existing information systems and databases to the RLC nodes - The resource life cycle network presents a Alattice-work@onto which the Aas is@ business information systems and databases can be Aattached.@ See for example, the meta model in Figure 2. The Ato-be@ databases and information systems are similarly attached. ADifference projects@ between the Aas-is@ and the Ato-be@ are then formulated. Achievement of all the difference projects is the achievement of the Information Systems Plan. Once the resource life cycle network has been created, it is stored into the metabase. Once there, its lattice can be employed to attach the databases and business information systems. Databases and their business information systems exist within a data architecture framework. The five distinct classes of databases are:a.)Original data capture (ODC) b.)Transaction data staging area (TDSA) c.)Subject area databases (SDB) d.)Data warehouses (wholesale and retail (a.k.a. data marts)) e.)Reference data
Most resource life cycle nodes contain at least one original data capture database application. The data from these ODC databases should be pushed to their respective TDSA databases. Once there, various subject area databases pull the data to build the longitudinal and broad subject area databases. It is likely that there is one subject area database for one or more resources. Data from the subject area databases, also called operational data stores by Bill Inmon, is again pulled to create one or more data warehouse databases. Most databases employ one or more reference data tables as standard semantics for selection, control-breaks and printing. Databases and business information systems exist in two forms: “as-is” and “to-be.” An “as-is” database or information system, as it’s characteristic implies, represents the existing state of the information technology assets. A “to-be” database or information system is a proposal for some technology improvement, functional enhancement, or an under-way project effort. 5.1 Allocate Existing (As-is) Databases or Files to Resource Life Cycle Nodes - Within the class of existing databases or files, there are three prototypical examples:a.)A file for every distinct process or purpose, b.)A single database for all reasons, c.)Multi-data architecture database classes.
Knowledge about these existing set of databases and files should already reside in the metabase. If their metadata is not in the metabase, these databases and files must be discovered. A good way is to research all the reports produced by the information systems department and allocate the file that was employed to produce the report to the RLC node that best fits the representation of the data. Once all the databases and files are allocated, reports can be produced by the metabase that show RLC nodes that have a “bountiful” quantity of databases and files (not a good sign). and those that have no allocated databases or files (also not a good sign). In the later case, there probably are databases and files but they are either “private” or undiscovered. Either case is “not a good sign.”sign.” In any case, allocating them to resource life cycle nodes is a matter of distilling the intended purpose of the database or file and then creating the relationship. It is likely that some files or databases will allocate to multiple nodes and even to different nodes of different life cycles. The quality of mapping relationships is inversely proportional to the encapsulation of the data to the resource life cycle node. For ODC databases or files, there should be few multi-node mappings. For data warehouse databases there will probably be many multi-node mappings.
6.)Allocate standard work break down structures (WBS) to each RLC node - Detailed planning of the Adifference projects@ entails allocating the appropriate canned work breakdown structures and metrics. Employing WBS and metrics from a comprehensive methodology supports project management standardization, repeatability, and self-learning.
7.)Load resources into each WBS node - Once the resources are determined, these are loaded into the project management meta entities of the meta data repository, that is, metrics, project, work plan and deliverables. The meta entities are those inferred by Figure 2.
8.)Schedule the RLC nodes through a project management package facilities. - The entire suite of projects is then scheduled on an enterprise-wide basis. The PERT chart used by project management is the APERT@ chart represented by the Resource Life Cycle enablement network.
9.)Produce and review of the ISP - The scheduled result is predicable: Too long, too costly, and too ambitious. At that point, the real work starts: paring down the suite of projects to a realistic set within time and budget. Because of the meta data environment (see Figure 1), the integrated project management meta data (see Figure 2), and because all projects are configured against fundamental business-rationale based designs, the results of the inevitable trade-offs can be set against business basics. Although the process is painful, the results can be justified and rationalized.
10.)Execute and adjust the ISP through time - As the ISP is set into execution, technology changes occur that affect resource loadings. In this case, only steps 6-9 need to be repeated. As work progresses, the underlying meta data built or used in steps 1-5 will also change. Because a quality ISP is Aautomated@ the recasting of the ISP should only take a week or less.
Collectively, the first nine steps take about 5000 staff hours, or about $500,000. Compared to an IS budget $15-35 million, that's only about 3.0% to 1.0%.
If the pundits are to be believed, that is, that the right information at the right time is the competitive edge, then paying for an information systems plan that is accurate, repeatable, and reliable is a small price indeed.

IT projects are accomplished within distinct development environments. The two most common are: discrete project and release. The discrete project environment is typified by completely encapsulated projects accomplished through a water-fall methodology.
In release environments, there are a number of different projects underway by different organizations and staff of varying skill levels. Once a large number of projects are underway, the ability of the enterprise to know about and manage all the different projects degrades rapidly. That is because the project management environment has been transformed from discrete encapsulated projects into a continuous flow process of product or functionality improvements that are released on a set time schedule. Figure 3 illustrates the continuous flow process environment that supports releases. The continuous flow process environment is characterized by:
Multiple, concurrent, but differently scheduled projects against the same enterprise resource
Single projects that affect multiple enterprise resources
Projects that develop completely new capabilities, or changes to existing capabilities within enterprise resources
It is precisely because enterprises have transformed themselves from a project to a release environment that information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained on an enterprise-wide basis are essential.
There are four major sets of activities within the continuous flow process environment. The user/client is represented at the top in the small rectangular box. Each of the ellipses represents an activity targeted to a specific need. The four basic needs are: a.)Need Identification b.)Need Assessment c.)Design d.)Deployment
Specification and impact analysis is represented through the left two processes. Implementation design and accomplishment is represented by the right two processes. Two key characteristics should be immediately apparent. First, unlike the water-fall approach, the activities do not flow one to the other. They are disjoint. In fact, they may be done by different teams, on different time schedules, and involve different quantities of products under management. In short, these four activities are independent one from the other. Their only interdependence is through the meta data repository.
The second characteristic flows from the first. Because these four activities are independent one from the other, the enterprise evolves by means of releases rather than through whole systems. If it evolved through whole systems, then the four activities would be connected either in a waterfall or a spiral approach, and the enterprise would be evolving through major upgrades to encapsulated functionality within specific business resources. In contrast, the release approach causes coordinated sets of changes to multiple business resources to be placed into production. This causes simultaneous, enterprise-wide capability upgrades across multiple business resources.
Through this continuous-flow process, several unique features are present:
All four processes are concurrently executing.
Changes to enterprise resources occur in unison, periodically, and in a very controlled manner.
The meta data repository is always contains all the enterprise resource specifications: current or planned. Simply put, if an enterprise resource semantic is not within the meta data repository, it is not enterprise policy.
All changes are planned, scheduled, measured, and subject to auditing, accounting, and traceability.
All documentation of all types is generated from the meta data repository.
In summary, any technique employed to achieve an ISP must be accomplishable with less than 3% of the IT budget. Additionally, it must be timely, useable, maintainable, able to be iterated into a quality product, and reproducible. IT organizations, once they have completed their initial set of databases and business information systems will find themselves transformed from a project to a release environment.The continuous flow environment then becomes the only viable alternative for moving the enterprise forward. It is precisely because of the release environment that enterprise-wide information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained are essential.

Ref: http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
ref: http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/informationsystemsplanning.pdf

MIS 2: Assignment # 3

2010-01-10T11:05:00.000-08:00

What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan? note: you are required to interview an IS professional/s for your answer ...(at least 3000 words)

Before anything else(chaar),let us first define what frustration means. Base from wikipedia, frustration a common emotional response to opposition. Related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. The greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be.

What are the causes?

We all have situations in our lives that cause stress. And while many of us are stressed by the same things--demanding jobs, super-busy schedules, critical relatives--not everything causes stress equally in all people. Our own emotions can make us frustrated, like misunderstandings, misinterpreting the situation, suspicion, pride, arrogance etc. can unnecessarily bring the frustration. Every work that is done means is a unified combination of task and our performance or efficiency so as to get that work done. To avoid frustrations, we need to accept our factual position instead of putting hopes on vague imagination in which the situation would have been different. We need to co-relate our dreaming behavior to actual situation. When we observe ourselves carefully, we can actually realize our limitations and hence can work towards exploring our available resources unless it would cause even more frustration. Our surrounding factors as well as assisting team play major role on our working ability. If our working ability gets hampered by external factors like non-cooperation of workers, that will bring frustration. We cannot expect any improvement against expressed will of other person if one is unwilling to put in the effort for it. If we waste our energy on such futile team that in fact is not interested in co-operating us, we get frustrated, we waste precious energy and attention and we will find ourselves stuck in a downward spiral of performance. Often the causes of "Frustration" are more mental than physical. A bad relationship, poor self image, a history of abuse, stress, frustration and many other factors can change your overall attitude towards life which may directly impede your overall performance. Such tendencies are deep-rooted in mind and nurtured by excessive Negative Emotions.It is needless to mention that these negative emotions are tremendously powerful. They can debilitate lives extremely quick by causing disparity in energy system, which triggers a sequence of emotional imbalance which ultimately culminates in ill health.To the individual experiencing frustration, the emotion is usually attributed to external factors which are beyond their control. Although mild frustration due to internal factors (e.g. laziness, lack of effort) is often a positive force (inspiring motivation), it is more often than not a perceived uncontrolled problem that instigates more severe, and perhaps pathological, frustration. An individual suffering from pathological frustration will often feel powerless to change the situation they are in, leading to frustration and, if left uncontrolled, further anger. Frustration can be a result of blocking motivated behavior. An individual may react in several different ways. He may respond with rational problem-solving methods to overcome the barrier. Failing in this, he may become frustrated and behave irrationally. An example of blockage of motivational energy would be the case of the worker who wants time off to go fishing but is denied permission by his supervisor. Another example would be the executive who wants a promotion but finds he lacks certain qualifications. If, in these cases, an appeal to reason does not succeed in reducing the barrier or in developing some reasonable alternative approach, the frustrated individual may resort to less adaptive methods of trying to reach his goal. He may, for example, attack the barrier physically or verbally or both.

After knowing the causes, let us know what are the symptoms. Frustration can be considered a problem-response behavior, and can have a number of effects, depending on the mental health of the individual. In positive cases, this frustration will build until a level that is too great for the individual to contend with, and thus produce action directed at solving the inherent problem. In negative cases, however, the individual may perceive the source of frustration to be outside of their control, and thus the frustration will continue to build, leading eventually to further problematic behavior (e.g. violent reaction). Stubborn refusal to respond to new conditions affecting the goal, such as removal or modification of the barrier, sometimes occurs. As pointed out by Brown, severe punishment may cause individuals to continue nonadaptive behavior blindly: “Either it may have an effect opposite to that of reward and as such, discourage the repetition of the act, or, by functioning as a frustrating agent, it may lead to fixation and the other symptoms of frustration as well. It follows that punishment is a dangerous tool, since it often has effects which are entirely the opposite of those desired”. One example would be the worker who is refused time off to go fishing may "cuss out" his supervisor to his face or behind his back. If he is sufficiently aroused, he may strike out at him with his fists or with the nearest weapon. If the supervisor is not present or the worker's fear of the consequences of direct attack is stronger than his desire to attack, he may transfer his aggression to someone or something else. Taking his frustration out on his family or on some object like his car or his equipment are typical ways of transferring aggression. Another "solution" to frustration is regressive behavior — becoming childish or reverting to earlier and more primitive ways of coping with the goal barrier. Throwing a temper tantrum, bursting into tears, or sulking are examples of regression. Wearing a long face and a worried look are other signs of this method of dealing with frustration.

Sir Docdocil said as we asked him, for him, the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan are 1.)Team working not in tandem due to office politics, jealousies, personal conflicts, etc. and 2.) Support from top management – not 100%. And I searched the internet, there are eight( ways on how to deal with it.

First, Ask Yourself, “What Is Working in This Situation?” Even if feels like nothing is working, look closely and you will probably find at least something that is going right. So, that’s good. You’ve found something that’s working. Now, how do you improve it? By asking this question, you’ve taken yourself out of the negative mindset of “it’s hopeless” and are back to focusing on the positive.
There's something that’s working and that will give you a clue of what direction to focus on. You may find that even if your previous issues come up you’ll be able to resolve them in the process of concentrating on your improvements.

Second, Keep an Accomplishments Log: Write down everything you accomplish in a log. If you do it in a monthly format you will be able to see all that you have accomplished in just one month. You may be surprised by how much you have done. If you realize there’s not much on the list, it may open your eyes to the fact that you may be procrastinating more than working or that you are using too much of your energy going in too many directions and that you need to focus more. Hopefully, you will have lots of items on your list then you can see that even though it may not feel like it, you are moving forwards. The log will also help to highlight where you were the most effective and where you need to work harder.

Third, Focus On What You Want to Happen: Go back to the big picture. What is the desired outcome? Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in one problem and trying to solve it that we forget what we were originally trying to accomplish. Try not to ask yourself, “Why did this happen?” Asking questions like that will keep you rooted in the past. It doesn’t offer a solution to the problem. The important thing is knowing the answer to the following two questions:
- What do you want to happen differently this time?”
- What do you need to do in order to get there?

Fourth, Remove the “Noise” and Simplify: When you’re trying to solve a problem, you can get so wrapped up in trying to find a solution that you add unnecessary clutter, noise, and tasks to a project because you thought they “might” be a solution.
Working on this website, I get bombarded by offer after offer of “easy ways to run your website”, “get more traffic”, “make more money” etc. They’re just noise though and usually a waste of my time even reading them. These people are just trying to make money off of me. They have no interest in whether I succeed or not. When people are frustrated by how slow the hard work process is taking, they get tempted by these “here’s what you’ve been missing” and “I’ll make it easy for you” offers. Usually, it ends up that if you do get tempted by the offers you discover 6 months down the road that if you had just stuck with your first plan and just kept working at it, you’d be a lot further ahead by now. Not to mention richer from not having spent money on the Get Rich Quick schemes. Believe in yourself. Simplify and go back to the basics. Determine what is really necessary and remove everything else. Anything that takes your time and effort that isn’t adding value, should be eliminated.

Fifth, Multiple Solutions: You always have options. You just need to brainstorm and figure them out. Tell yourself you need to come up with 8 possible options to what you’re dealing with. Just knowing that you have lots of options will help to make you feel better. You won’t feel like you are trapped in one negative situation. From your list, figure out the best direction and go for it.

Sixth, Take Action: When you get into serious frustration with a problem, you tend not to want to work on it anymore. It’s hard, it’s frustrating, and you’re not getting anywhere. So, anything to avoid having to be in that situation may be far more attractive. Procrastination may start to set in. If you can keep taking steps forwards, you will probably make it past this temporary hump. As Thomas Edison said, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” and “Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment.”
The other thing that can happen is that you start to spend a lot of time worrying. Worrying is a definite way of energy and does not move you in a forwards direction. Only taking action will. Once you start moving forwards again, you will most likely find that you worried for no reason.

Seventh, Visualize a Positive Outcome to the Situation: A lot of times you can get stuck on focusing on what you don’t want to happen or fearing the absolute worst thing that could happen. The top athletes of the world will imagine themselves competing flawlessly over and over again. There is no room for failure in their minds. This is what you need to focus on as well. See yourself achieving your desired outcome. What will it look like? What will it feel like? What will you say? How will you feel? Take the time to visualize it and really feel it. It will inspire you to keep moving forwards.

And the last, Stay Positive: Things are usually not as bad as they first appear. Sometimes, things seem much worse simply because we’re tired or mentally drained. Taking a break and remembering to keep your sense of humour can also help. This time of frustration will pass. A positive mind is far more open to solutions and answers than a negative one that thinks it’s just “hopeless” and thinks “what’s the use?” A closed mind will not be able to see the possible solutions when they do come along. Stay positive.

As with any problem, the solution is to figure out what your options are, decide on a plan, focus, and then take action. By using the above 8 steps, you should find that you’re running into fewer problems and feeling less frustration. Instead, you may find that you’re running into opportunities and you know exactly how to take advantage of them.

Lessen "Negative Emotions" in psyche,boost latent inner ability Mold the inherent behavior in accordance with the existing circumstances and surrounding conditions get rid of worries, tensions and sufferings achieve peace of mind and bring the Ultimate Happiness!"Balancing Emotions" will purge Negative Emotions in psyche and shape your innate behavior in a way to face every life challenge by avoiding pessimistic approach towards life; while you will be able to derive maximum life pleasure from whatever resources are available with you! According to Bach Flower Therapy, often any ailment or ill-health condition --at most of the time and in majority of the cases-- is the result or expression of persistent "emotional imbalance" that takes place at the core of your psyche and persists over a period of time due to gradual accumulation of numerous Negative Emotions, those originates either from your mind itself or from your surrounding circumstances. As soon as your mental state improves the physical trouble disappears. Therefore a person --which implies his overall nature, his general attitude towards life and his inimitable surrounding circumstances-- is more important than his disease or ill-health condition.

Every situation that looks bad has an equal amount of good, if you look for it. Everything that happens just "is". Like two sides of a coin, it has a side that looks 'bad' and it has a side that looks 'good'. You get to choose. Whatever you call it, it becomes for you. In any situation you need to:“Remind yourself that the universe is friendly to you. There is a virtually infinite supply of everything you need. There is always enough money, customers, time, love, friends, etc so that no situation can leave you without those things for long. You do not absolutely need 'that one', you can move on to the next. Next, you remind yourself that you get to decide what to call the situation - good or bad. You know the good is there (and, yes, I know, it is sometimes hard to see when you're in the thick of it), but you do know it's there."

_MIS 2:Assignment # 2_

2009-12-01T03:56:00.000-08:00

What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan?

Business Plan

Before knowing the nature of the relationship between business plan and IS plan, let's first define the two for better understanding. According to wikipedia, business plan is 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. For my understanding, upon hearing business plan, it is planning about the business. Meaning, plan to which pertaining to attain certain goal for the company. 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.

In the hyper-competitive environment of today, there is perhaps nothing more important than planning and specifically developing a business plan. In any organization, there are many different types of plans – financial, human resource, marketing, production and sales.These plans may be short-term or long-term, strategic or operational, and varying greatly in scope. In spite of the differences in scope and coverage, each plan has a common purpose: to provide guidance and structure on a continuing basis for managing the organization in a rapidly changing hypercompetitive environment.

In this era of planning and intense competition among nonprofits for funds and market share, increasing competition between for profits and nonprofits, and increasing opportunities and pressures for nonprofits to collaborate with other non-profits as well as with business corporations, a business plan becomes an integral part of strategically managing an organization. By describing all the relevant external and internal elements involved in managing the organization, the business plan integrates the functional plans such as finance, human resources, and marketing, providing a road map for the future of the organization. There are various types of nonprofit ventures that may require a business plan such as a commercial venture attempting to raise net revenues for the nonprofit as well as ventures that directly address the mission of the organization and may not generate profits from sales but still need adequate support.

A business plan is usually read by a variety of stakeholders, and often has many different purposes. It needs to be comprehensive enough to address the issues and concerns of advisors, bankers, funders, community members, foundations, corporations, individual donors, government program officers, and affected client groups. Generally, the purpose of a business plan is to: obtain financial resources; obtain other resources; develop strategic alliances; and/or provide direction and guidance for the organization. While a business plan can serve several purposes, its most frequent use is to obtain financial resources. A well developed business plan then is important as it: (1) provides guidance to the organization in decision making and organizing the direction of the company; (2) indicates the viability of an organization in the designated market; and (3) serves as a vehicle in obtaining financing.

Given the importance and purpose of a business plan, it is imperative that it be comprehensive and covers in depth all aspects of the organization. The plan will be read by a variety of individuals, each of who is looking for a certain level of detail. The business plan can be divided into three primary areas, each of which has several sections. The first primary area, while the shortest, is perhaps the most significant, particularly when the purpose is to secure financing. This area consists of the title page, table of contents, and executive summary. The title page should contain the following information: (1) the name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail numbers of the organization; (2) the name and position of the principle individuals in the organization; (3) three to four sentences briefly describing the nature of the organization and the purpose of the business plan; and (4) a statement of confidentiality such as “this is confidential business plan number which cannot be reproduced without permission.” This statement is important, as each numbered business plan needs to be accounted for by recording the person and organization of the individual receiving it and the date of receipt. The table of contents is perhaps the easiest part of the business plan to develop. It should follow the standard format with major sections and appendixes (exhibits) indicated along with the appropriate page numbers. The final part of the first primary area of the business plan – the executive summary – is the most important and most difficult to develop. This no more than three page summary is frequently used to determine if the entire business plan is worth reading and analyzing. The executive summary then affects if more detailed attention will be given to the plan. Given its importance, the executive summary should be written last and be written and rewritten until it highlights the organization in a concise, convincing manner covering the key points in the business plan. The executive summary should emphasize the three most critical areas for the success of the organization. In order of importance, these are the characteristics, capabilities, and experience of the management team; the nature and degree of innovativeness of the product or service and its market size and characteristics; and the expected results over the next three years. The second primary area of the business plan is the essence of the plan which contains the following sections: description of the organization, description of the area of service, marketing plan, financial plan, organization plan, operations plan, and summary. This area should be self contained, flowing smoothly from the description of the organization section to the summary section. The first section in this second primary area – the description of the organization – describes in detail the past, present, and future of the organization. The person reading the business plan needs to understand the history of the organization, its present size and scope, and its future over the next three years. The mission statement of the organization needs to be stated and show how this guides the organization. It is also important to clarify the tax status of the organization and especially if there is IRS approval for tax-exempt status. Following the organization section comes the description of the area of service. This section is important as it puts the organization in its proper context and competitive position. This section gives a historical overview of the service area, its present situation in terms of size and offerings, and its future outlook. A particularly important part of this section is competitive analysis, which should describe the strengths and weaknesses of each major competitor with respect to the corresponding strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This section should conclude with a forecast of the size and future outlook of the service area. The fourth section begins the three parts dealing with the important functional aspects of the organization. The first, the marketing plan describes the nature of the product or service and how it will be distributed, priced, and promoted to achieve the amount of activity indicated each year for the next three years. Since everyone realizes that marketing is involved in achieving the necessary sales, each marketing aspect should be discussed in detail in as comprehensive terms as possible. Given the close relationship, the financial plan follows logically. This section revolves around the preparation of four basic statements: the sources and uses of funds statement, the pro-forma income statements for at least the next three years, the pro-forma cash flow statements for at least the next three years, and the pro-forma balance sheets for at least the next three years. If the organization has already been in operation then past income statements and balance sheets should be in the appendix and discussed in the financial plan section The sixth section – the operational plan – describes overall how the organization will operate. This section should focus on the flow of work enabling the reader to understand the process that occurs from the time an order is received until the resource is delivered. This provides understanding of the overall operation of an organization. Primary area two concludes with a summary. This short section merely summarizes the preceding sections by highlighting the most important points and concludes with any requests of the reader. Following this core of the business plan comes primary area three – the appendices or exhibits. These provide supporting and additional information amplifying the material presented in primary area two. Typical appendices include: resumes of principals, markets statistics, market research data, competitors brochures and price lists, and leases and contracts.

Given the amount of time and effort needed to develop a good business plan, it is important that the plan be carefully implemented and used to provide guidance for the organization in all areas of its operation. The business plan will be most effective when controls are simultaneously implemented and the progress toward the established objectives is reviewed on a regular basis. Since the organization is operating in a competitive, changing environment, it is important that the organization be sensitive to changes in its field or industry, and market, and make the appropriate changes in the business plan as needed.
This will allow the business plan to be most effective in successfully guiding the organization over time.

ref: http://www.nationalcne.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/feature.display/feature_id/56/index.cfm?CFID=34311&CFTOKEN=48125333

IS Plan

IS plan for me is a plan in which it focuses on the improvements of the system in a certain organization. It is a process for developing a strategy and plans for aligning information systems with the business strategies of an organization. Most organization's survival now depends on IT. Planning of its effective use is a matter of organizational life and death. A variety of approaches, tools and mechanisms available for IS planning. In a traditional view, it is determining what decisions to make in the future. While in a better view, it is developing a view of the future that guides decision making today. Planning is different from making a strategy but I think it is also good over planning. Strategy making is stating the direction in which you want to go and how you intend to get there. Now, there are different types of planning. Strategic, tactical and operational. 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 ), PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological), STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors), and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal). Strategic planning is the formal consideration of an organization's future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

1. "What do we do?"
2. "For whom do we do it?"
3. "How do we excel?"

In business strategic planning, the third question is better phrased "How can we beat or avoid competition?". In many organizations, this is viewed as a process for determining where an organization is going over the next year or more -typically 3 to 5 years, although some extend their vision to 20 years.
In order to determine where it is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the "strategic plan." It is also true that strategic planning may be a tool for effectively plotting the direction of a company; however, strategic planning itself cannot foretell exactly how the market will evolve and what issues will surface in the coming days in order to plan your organizational strategy. Therefore, strategic innovation and tinkering with the 'strategic plan' have to be a cornerstone strategy for an organization to survive the turbulent business climate.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning

Tactical Planning is the process of taking the strategic plan and breaking it down into specific, short term actions and plans. The relative length of the planning horizon will vary from one market to another but typically the strategic plan will cover a period greater than three years while the tactical plan covers the period from today through to the end of year three. The content of any business plan will depend on why the plan is being produced. Some plans are for internal use only and act as a common reference during the preparation of budgets and appraisals. Some plans are basically sales documents aimed at persuading banks to provide loans and investors to provide equity. The process of producing a useable tactical plan is not easy as some flexibility is required to allow response to unplanned events. There are a large variety of strategic planning models and organisations that provide strategic planning consulting. Some of these are useful and can be used a check lists to ensure completeness and as facilitators to ask the awkward questions that people would prefer to leave unanswered. It is important that the tactical plan should be checked to ensure it is aligned with the strategic plan and that all activities are aimed at moving closer to the goals defined in the strategic plan. It is very easy for the tactical plan to diverge at a tangent because of someone's interests or disagreement with the strategic plan.

ref:http://www.businesscoachingexecutive.com/tactical_planning.html

An operational planning is a subset of strategic work plan. It describes short-term ways of achieving milestones and explains how, or what portion of, a strategic plan will be put into operation during a given operational period, in the case of commercial application, a fiscal year or another given budgetary term. An operational plan is the basis for, and justification of an annual operating budget request. Therefore, a five-year strategic plan would need five operational plans funded by five operating budgets. Operational plans should establish the activities and budgets for each part of the organisation for the next 1 – 3 years. They link the strategic plan with the activities the organization will deliver and the resources required to deliver them. An operational plan draws directly from agency and program strategic plans to describe agency and program missions and goals, program objectives, and program activities. Like a strategic plan, an operational plan addresses four questions:

* Where are we now?
* Where do we want to be?
* How do we get there?
* How do we measure our progress?

The OP is both the first and the last step in preparing an operating budget request. As the first step, the OP provides a plan for resource allocation; as the last step, the OP may be modified to reflect policy decisions or financial changes made during the budget development process. Operational plans should be prepared by the people who will be involved in implementation. There is often a need for significant cross-departmental dialogue as plans created by one part of the organisation inevitably have implications for other parts.

Operational plans should contain:

* clear objectives
* activities to be delivered
* quality standards
* desired outcomes
* staffing and resource requirements
* implementation timetables
* a process for monitoring progress.

ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_planning

In all the things we do, planning is a part of an activities for it guides every steps that can give satisfaction to our work. And we can't deny the fact that planning is so difficult. Here comes now the relationship between business plan and IS plan. It's because business goals and systems plans need to align.Strategic systems plans need to align with business goals and support those objectives. It will be difficult if CIO is not part of senior management. Technologies are rapidly changing. And continuous planning based on monitoring and experimenting new technologies. Certain companies need portfolios rather than projects. It is for the evaluation on more than their individual merit. On h.ow they fit into other projects and how they balance the portfolio of projects. In planning, infrastructure is included in which the infrastructure development is difficult to fund. It is often done under the auspices of a large application project. One of the challenge for this is to develop improved applications and improve infrastructure over time. Systems planning has become business planning, not just a technology issue.Responsibility needs to be joint. It is better done by a full partnership of C-level officers. Other planning issue is planning culture in which the systems planning must fit.

_MIS 2: Assignment 1_

2009-11-29T16:59:00.000-08:00

After reading the question that is needed to answer in at least 3000 words, I don't know what to put for its too long and a very long thinking is really needed to be able to answer the question's made.

Well, 10 years from now, I will be in the age of 30. Not bad coz it's not too old though.hehe....But you know what?I can't imagine what would be my life in that stage. Either be a successful one or not , it will depend on how I will handle my career and life. Of what will be happening from this day onwards would really rely on my own hands.

Now, the question is "Who am I 10 years from now?"And since IT is my course, I would love to be one of the IT professional. But there are so many jobs related in IT just like a programmer, system analyst and etc. Now, "What will be my job/position?"That is a big and difficult question for me to answer. But, in order to answer the assignment, and of course to know what i want to be is to dream of beacoming a programmer.(charing...har3)

Many people are attracted to the field of computer programming because it pays well and there are many jobs available in the field. While this is certainly true, there are also some drawbacks as well; long anti-social hours at the computer, frustration and the difficulty of the job on a consistent basis are but a few. If you’re attracted to the field of computer programming regardless, following the steps below can put you on the right track to establishing your dream career.Programming for me is very hard. And there are many PLs or programming languages now. One is java. To become a programmer, here are some instructions to get there:

First,learn about what a programmer does. A computer programmer is one who designs and maintains computer programs and applications that users use on a daily basis at home and / or at work. They create programs, make adjustments to programs already created and/or fix programs by manipulating the code that the program runs.
Second, learn about the qualities necessary to become a successful programmer. Many people assume that to be a good programmer one must be a mathematical genius. This simply is not the case. There are many more qualities that are characteristic of good programmers, most of which are more important than being a math wiz. The ability to think laterally and logically, the ability to work alone for extended periods of time, patience, and design skills are a few of the qualities needed to be a good programmer.
Third, decide what type of programming interests you. There are many types of computer programming. Some types of programming include: Game Programming, Analyst Programming and Applications Programming.
And fourth, seek education that is programming related. A college degree is not necessary to become a programmer, but will certainly help you find employment when you leave college. Many employers will want prospective job candidates to be certified in specific computer programming languages. While you can do this on your own, a college or university degree program in IT or Computer Programming will ensure you are adequately prepared for certification evaluations. Those who do not have college degrees can expect to work for less than those that do.

ref: http://www.ehow.com/how_2304308_become-programmer.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art

Currently, I am studying in University of Southeastern Philippines for the purpose of wanting to graduate and to make my parents proud. Also, to have a stable job in the future.Programming is our major subject and we have already encounter lots of programming language. It includes java, and c++. To be honest, taking up this course is maybe a wrong choice of mine. Since in my high school years I don't know what to take for the college. All of us can't deny the fact that before going to college we are all not sure what to take in college.A lot of things I want to do. Like I want to travel around the world. And there's coming into my mind that I want to have job only in office. Also I want to be a nurse, a teacher. But we have to decide what we will be wanted to be and what to do for the future needs and living. When I take the the entrance exam here in USEP, there's a blank that is provided for the course you want to take. I don't know what to write coz I've decided that time that I will take accountancy or commerce but unfortunately, either of the two courses I mentioned offered here in school. So I took the advise of some students to take the BSIT even though I don't know what's that all about because they said that this course is in demand. You can get a job fast after you graduate. So, I took it and write it.

During my first year in college, I heard lots of humors that those who take IT, after 1 or 2 years they 've decided to shift to another course and few are left. And it is true. I felt afraid because if I shift to another course, back to first subject and I don't want it. So, I took this course as a challenge and a problem that I have to face to test my faith to GOD. And so thank GOD coz until now I'm here standing and fighting even though lots of problems and challenges comes into my life.

In my 3 and a half years I think in this course, I should be 4th year right now and a graduating a student. But due to some expected and unexpected things, I am only 3rd year now. Suffering from all the subjects that is loaded to me..hehe...Well, not only this year but all the years Iv'e been here in college and school. That's the life of the student though. I just have to accept that fact. And as a student, strategies are part of it to make things go in your way. Just like what will be your strategies and plan to be able to graduate in school.

Well, to be able to be one of an IT professional someday, I have to graduate first and receive my college diploma. We all know that every time you want to apply in a large company for a certain job you have to be a college graduate to be accepted except if you are a very genius person. And to graduate, you have to have strategies and plans. First, you have to think of what are your priorities in life. And the very first priority of mine is my family. Not only a priority but also an inspiration. They are the reason why I am pursuing my goal to study and graduate. To make them proud of me and to help them if I have my job someday. Of course, I have also to prioritize my subjects so that I can do all the tasks and solve all the problems in order to pass it. I should try to concentrate only in my subjects and not in some other enjoyment like facebook and friendster. I want to focused myself to complete my projects. By having priorities especially your family, you have the urge in your heart to fulfill your dreams in life.

Another thing that I should keep in mind is my attitude towards my subjects. Every time we have to do I get easily sleep. Especially in coding. I get easily tired.One way of achieving your goal is to discipline yourself. Discipline in a way of refraining from negative habits in which it lets you make you feel your downfall or failure. Another bad attitude of mine is doing an assignment or project in last minute. I should try to vanish it if I want to graduate coz that is one of the reason why sometimes i can't make and pass my assignments and projects.

And of course, in every journey of our life GOD is with us all the time. In every trials we encounter HE always guide us and give us strength to face and fight all the challenges we have. Without GOD, we are NOTHING!

Now, after graduate find a stable job. Working to support family. To be a competent IT professional, you must know what the expectations of your colleagues, your industry, your clients and the general public are. Meeting these expectations is what qualifies you to call yourself a professional, and what gives you recognition as a professional.
In today's world the role of the IT professional is crucial. IT has become an essential resource for most organizations. The evolving scenario is one of a growing complexity of computer systems and businesses dependence on them. Qualified and competent IT professionals are needed to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of computers.
Professionals work in areas such as Programming, Engineering, Database Administration, Networking, Web development and E-Commerce.
IT professionals create, operate, maintain and program computers. An IT professional must have the skills and knowledge required to carry out specialized tasks in a recognized field of IT. This is the minimum requirement. But IT skills demand far outstrips supply. Current IT skills shortage worldwide is enormous.
Knowledge (intellectual and conceptual) can be acquired through formal education sources such as private training institutions, colleges, institutions of higher learning, as well as E-learning on the Internet. The focus is on the intellectual, i.e. understanding concepts, generating ideas. Skills however, can be acquired and improved from work experience and practical training. The most effective form of skill building is through practical exercises.
Training and certification assists in improving skills, increasing knowledge and gaining recognition. Certification exams identify the necessary skills for an individual to perform their job competently and most important, successfully. For example, A+ certifies the competency of service professionals in the computer industry. Anyone who wants an internationally recognized credential as a competent computer service professional can take the A+ examination.
Because Certification is becoming the vogue in the IT industry today, more and more potential and working IT professionals want to get certified. It makes sense. Certification gives an IT professional, a valued credential that is recognized in the IT industry. Not only that, it is a powerful tool for providing job and business opportunities and for meeting challenges on the field. Improved income and enhanced professional credibility are powerful motivators for becoming IT certified.
Popular certification programs are Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE), A+, Oracle DBA, Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) and Sun Certified Programmer (Java 2).
Does having a popular certification make you a competent and recognized IT professional? Is certification part of your career development plan? If it is, this must be based on a solid understanding of what certification entails and how certification fits into your personal work / career goals.
But as noted earlier, certification is only one way of ensuring you have the required skills and knowledge for IT professionalism. Formal education and Work experience, i.e. practical and relevant work experience, are also essential for IT skill and knowledge achievement.
However, does having superior IT skills, knowledge and certification make you a true professional? "Administrators and network engineers do not live by Windows 2000 alone. " I have personally come in contact with IT certified individuals who I cannot dare to call professionals. Or what would you call an individual who has no regard for ethics and is ever ready to sacrifice professionalism at the altar of money? As a professional what is your attitude to the public, your work, your colleagues, or your clients?
What is your attitude towards business ethics? In today's fast and slick business environment, how relevant is ethics when you can take the easy way out? Everybody wants to be "fast and smart". To a professional, money is important but it is not everything. Money should not be your master. To maintain this attitude can sometimes be difficult, with the attendant daily pressures. But that is no excuse. If you want to be a true professional that is the price you must pay. IT professionals need to ask themselves: "Am I in IT for quick, short profit or am I in IT for the long distance?" The choice is yours.
Is the CCNA certified individual who defrauds his employers an IT professional? What about those who use their skills and knowledge for anti-social and destructive activities? Are they professionals too? The most notorious are hackers and Virus developers. These are highly skilled individuals but what they use those skills for are not in the interest of society. The same goes for IT fraudsters. If you have all certifications in this world and you use your knowledge and skills to steal and destroy you are nothing but a thief.
Is it truly ethical, for example, for a professional to take longer than necessary to perform a job? To say that he/she is sick in order to take a day off for leisure? To fail to report rule violations by a co-worker?
The public expects the IT professional to be socially responsible and disciplined and should be a role model for the youth.
IT professionals must also address is the issue of currency. Professionals must find ways of staying current on IT and IT related issues. This requires continuous self-development on the part of the IT professional. Simply because you are certified, or you have many years of experience, does not mean you should go to sleep. The IT field is one of the fastest developing fields worldwide. You cannot afford to be outdated or allow your skills to stagnate. You cannot serve your clients or employers well if you only have outdated ideas and information. As an IT professional, you cannot be relevant to your society if you are not current.
Luckily with the digital age, there are many information, and learning opportunities available for serious and career-minded IT professionals. The Internet can be used for education and continuous self-development. Other tools that can be utilized for staying up to date include: books, publications, training, software, etc. But the presence of all these tools is not enough; as a professional you must have the ability and desire to update yourself on a continuous basis. We must never stop learning. This is especially crucial in IT. There must be a readiness and hunger to learn. Yesterday's knowledge may not be able to handle today's opportunities and challenges.
In conclusion, one can state that IT professionalism doesn't end with getting certified and earning a fat pay. It isn't simply about being a skilled expert. Just as professionalism is about skills and knowledge, it is also about responsibility and duty. It is about using your skills and knowledge in a responsible and humane manner. It is about using your privileged status to bring about positive change in society.
The right attitude also extends to how you treat your clients or employers. Are you dependable and trustworthy? There are many examples of so-called professionals who talk down to clients, and who cheat their clients or employers.

ref: http://www.jidaw.com/article2.html

Dreaming is what you want to be in the future and there's nothing wrong about it. We have all the right to dream. I just hope that GOD will guide me always and will give me knowledge, wisdom and strength to face all the challenges in life.

_MIS 2: Introduction_

2009-11-29T16:55:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Welcome to myself in this forum! I want to introduce my myself,again I'm ILYN P. MAPALO taking up Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. I'm 19 years old. Well, what I am expecting in this subject which is MIS 2 is that it will be one of the challenging and pressure subject in this semester.

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED! :-)

Journal 5___

2009-10-02T15:50:00.000-07:00

October 1, 2009

We were here again to discuss the biometrics that we had researched from Dctech. He discussed his opinion and gave his choice. This time we asked his signatory.

Journal 4___

2009-10-02T15:47:00.002-07:00

September 28, 2009

It was our third visit for further clarification and asked some information necessary for the proposal we planned to make.

Journal 3___

2009-10-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

August 15, 2009

It was our second interview with the corporation. Before the interview had done we already forwarded our questions via email and do updating with their system. We asked about the Information System that the company had.

Journal 2___

2009-10-02T15:43:00.001-07:00

July 3, 2009

After receiving the confirmation we immediately formulated related questions. We arrived at the Lapanday Foods Corporation at 3:00pm and ended the interview at 5:00pm. We met the MIS Manager and started interview with him. We have a nice conversation with him.

_Assignment 9_

2009-10-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

We are now in an information age in which new discoveries and inventories of technology are being introduce to us which can give to the people of the world a very big help. Like in most organizations in which it makes all the transactions faster and easier.
Our last assignment is to find an information environment of our choice and what could be our role in that certain environment. Let's first define information environment. First to define is information. Information as a concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation. While environment is the surroundings which we belong. When we combine the two meanings, it result in area in which all the professional people are working together and of course uses their skills for the success of their organization. In information environment, it consists of each department to work for which specify your skills. Either in making programs or an analysts and many other departments.

Ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information

There is now a critical mass of digital information resources that can be used to support researchers, learners, teachers and administrators in their work and study. The production of information is on the increase and ways to deal with this effectively are required. There is the need to ensure that quality information isn’t lost amongst the masses of digital data created everyday. If we can continue to improve the management, interrogation and serving of ‘quality’ information there is huge potential to enhance knowledge creation across learning and research communities. The aim of the Information Environment is to help provide convenient access to resources for research and learning through the use of resource discovery and resource management tools and the development of better services and practice. The Information Environment aims to allow discovery, access and use of resources for research and learning irrespective of their location.

Ref:http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/informationenvironment.aspx

My course is BSIT or Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. Information Technology as defined by wiki, is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware."IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information.
Today, the term information technology has ballooned to encompass many aspects of computing and technology, and the term has become very recognizable. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management and administration of entire systems. When computer and communications technologies are combined, the result is information technology, or "infotech". Information technology is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information. Presumably, when speaking of Information Technology (IT) as a whole, it is noted that the use of computers and information are associated.

When I entered this course, I don't know how to use computer. During the entrance examination, I don't know what to write in the preffered course. And because of “computer” word, I write the BSIT as my course without any knowledge about it.

An information environment of my choice:

Well, we all know that a graduate of a BSIT course is an intellect one because IT has something to do with software applications program which needs to be analyze first, and then program. I'm not sure if i'm able to finish this course but i'm hoping I can face all the challenges and difficulties in this course. For me, I want to be in the IT department of a certain company. IT department as I know has different divisions. Like for example, a department for all the professional system analyst. A systems analyst is responsible for researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software and system choices to meet an organization's business requirements. The systems analyst plays a vital role in the systems development process. A successful systems analyst must acquire four skills: analytical, technical, managerial, and interpersonal. Analytical skills enable systems analysts to understand the organization and its functions, which helps him/her to identify opportunities and to analyze and solve problems. Technical skills help systems analysts understand the potential and the limitations of information technology. The systems analyst must be able to work with various programming languages, operating systems, and computer hardware platforms. Management skills help systems analysts manage projects, resources, risk, and change. Interpersonal skills help systems analysts work with end users as well as with analysts, programmers, and other systems professionals.
Because they must write user requests into technical specifications, the systems analysts are the liaisons between vendors and the IT professionals of the organization they represent. They may be responsible for developing cost analysis, design considerations, and implementation time-lines. They may also be responsible for feasibility studies of a computer system before making recommendations to senior management.

A systems analyst performs the following tasks:

Interact with the customers to know their requirements
Interact with designers to convey the possible interface of the software
Interact/guide the coders/developers to keep track of system development
Perform system testing with sample/live data with the help of testers
Implement the new system
Prepare High quality Documentation

A software analyst is the person who studies the software application domain and prepares the software requirements and specification (Software Requirements Specification) document. Software analyst is the same between the software users and the software developers. It conveys the demands of the software users to the developers. A software analyst is expected to have the following skills:
Working knowledge of software technology
Computer programming experience and expertise
General business knowledge
Problem solving and problem reduction skills
Interpersonal relation skills
Be flexible and adaptable

ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_analyst

Another is web designer. Web design is the skill of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients, microblogging clients and RSS readers.
Web design is a kind of graphic design intended for development and styling of objects of the Internet's information environment to provide them with high-end consumer features and aesthetic qualities. The offered definition separates web design from web programming, emphasizing the functional features of a web site, as well as positioning web design as a kind of graphic design.
Web design is the skill of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients, microblogging clients and RSS readers.
Web design is a kind of graphic design intended for development and styling of objects of the Internet's information environment to provide them with high-end consumer features and aesthetic qualities. The offered definition separates web design from web programming, emphasizing the functional features of a web site, as well as positioning web design as a kind of graphic design.
Web pages and web sites can be static pages, or can be programmed to be dynamic pages that automatically adapt content or visual appearance depending on a variety of factors, such as input from the end-user, input from the Webmaster or changes in the computing environment (such as the site's associated database having been modified). With growing specialization within communication design and information technology fields, there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design specifically for web pages and web development for the overall logistics of all web-based services.

Another is system design engineering. Systems engineering (also known as Systems design engineering) is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how complex engineering projects should be designed and managed. Issues such as logistics, the coordination of different teams, and automatic control of machinery become more difficult when dealing with large, complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes and tools to handle such projects, and it overlaps with both technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering and project management.

A programmer is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to programming may also be known as a programmer analyst. A programmer's primary computer language (Lisp, Java, Delphi, C++, etc.) is often prefixed to the above titles, and those who work in a web environment often prefix their titles with web. The term programmer can be used to refer to a software developer, software engineer, computer scientist, or software analyst. However, members of these professions typically possess other software engineering skills, beyond programming; for this reason, the term programmer is sometimes considered an insulting or derogatory oversimplification of these other professions. This has sparked much debate amongst developers, analysts, computer scientists, programmers, and outsiders who continue to be puzzled at the subtle differences in these occupations.[
A game programmer is a software engineer who primarily develops video games or related software (such as game development tools). Game programming has many specialized disciplines; practitioners of any may regard themselves as "game programmers". A game programmer should not be confused with a game designer; many designers are also programmers, but not all are, and it is rare for one person to serve both roles in modern professional games.

From those mention above some IT jobs, I rather be a programmer.There are many kinds of programmer and either of it i'm willing to work.

Principles of information organization:

As I searched the internet, I found three principles and these are:
Knowledge needs to be organized for communities
In designing tools to support the organization of knowledge, guiding principle must be that of user orientation and predominant usage
Standardization and networking provide infrastructures, which facilitate effective and efficient access to information and documents

For the first principle, needs of the community for information, documents, education and recreation are established through user studies, service delivery, committees ('focus groups'), involvement with stake holders in the community and other interactions with the community. Similarly the producers of databases, who organize knowledge embedded in document and databases, do so with the understanding of the marketplace, and the type and format of information that is likely to cultivate and maintain a loyal customer base. Portals could be viewed as the electronic agency that tailors document access and information services for specific communities. Nature of communities varies with the type of portal - public, commercial, internal, etc. However, the imperative to develop a community is clear. Public service needs to be offered to an identifiable community for resources to continue to support the portal .Commercial portals need to be convinced that their Internet activities are having a positive effect on awareness, reputation and trade .Creation of communities cannot be left to chance .E-organisations need to go beyond defining relationships with the customers, to taking a lead in the definition of the culture and values of the community they are seeking to create .This definition will assist consumers to identify with a community to which they can contribute. For user orientation, in the design of access points, index terms, search keys, and, more traditionally, headings, the principles of user orientation and reference to the user's cognitive and semantic frameworks has been long established. Traditional classification schemes were hierarchical in nature, as are the menu structures embedded in many web sites. Limitations of classification schemes has become evident with the growth of knowledge - resulting in cross-classification (location of a topic in multiple hierarchies). And for the last principle, global L&I community has achieved great success in international networks and networking activities .Support exchange of bibliographic data and documents and a host of other services.Demonstrate the sharing of expertise and perspectives in relation to the organization of knowledge. Use of these standards also leads to standardization in the interfaces offered to the user.

Challenges:

One of the challenges that I might encounter is having no experience.It means lack of experience or of the knowledge or skill resulting from experience. In real world situation, we can't deny the fact that a certain company or organization would hire person whom with experience. They just concern about their company's welfare. And if ever I am hired even though I don't have any experience, I will do my very best to do my job well. And how can I do that? I will just keep on learning what to learn and just keep on reading that is relevant to the job. And if ever there's something that I don't know, I should not be hesitant to ask to my colleagues. By that, I'm gaining information/knowledge.

_Assignment 8_

2009-09-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

Information systems are what the companies, organizations and even schools need to understand deeply for it is very needed and important in order to have an organize and well managed business. And in that matter, to make a certain system be effective, efficient and especially friendly user, the system should be well define and proven to be trusted to avoid leakage.

Let’s first define the two, outsourcing and in-source. Says from wiki that outsourcing is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company. Out sourcing in the information technology field has two meanings. One is to commission the development of an application to another organization, usually a company that specializes in the development of this type of application. Meaning, a certain company or organization is purchasing a software usually a package one with services free like maintenance depending on their services. But some software companies are providing a 24 hour services so that everytime there's something wrong with the software, they can contact and ask for an advice what to do.The other is to hire the services of another company to manage all or parts of the services that otherwise would be rendered by an IT unit of the organization. The decision to outsource is often made in the interest of lowering cost or making better use of time and energy costs, redirecting or conserving energy directed at the competencies of a particularbusiness , or to make more efficient use of land, labor, capital, (information) technology and resources.

As you evaluate your choices and decisions in outsourcing different components of your operations, you will need to consider the advantages of outsourcing. When done for the right reasons, outsourcing will actually help your company grow and save money. There are other advantages of outsourcing that go beyond money. Here are the top seven advantages of outsourcing.

1. Focus On Core Activities
In rapid growth periods, the back-office operations of a company will expand also. This expansion may start to consume resources (human and financial) at the expense of the core activities that have made your company successful. Outsourcing those activities will allow refocusing on those business activities that are important without sacrificing quality or service in the back-office.
Example: A company lands a large contract that will significantly increase the volume of purchasing in a very short period of time; Outsource purchasing.
2. Cost And Efficiency Savings
Back-office functions that are complicated in nature, but the size of your company is preventing you from performing it at a consistent and reasonable cost, is another advantage of outsourcing.
Example: A small doctor’s office that wants to accept a variety of insurance plans. One part-time person could not keep up with all the different providers and rules. Outsource to a firm specializing in medical billing.
3. Reduced Overhead
Overhead costs of performing a particular back-office function are extremely high. Consider outsourcing those functions which can be moved easily.
Example: Growth has resulted in an increased need for office space. The current location is very expensive and there is no room to expand. Outsource some simple operations in order to reduce the need for office space. For example, outbound telemarketing or data entry.
4. Operational Control
Operations whose costs are running out of control must be considered for outsourcing. Departments that may have evolved over time into uncontrolled and poorly managed areas are prime motivators for outsourcing. In addition, an outsourcing company can bring better management skills to your company than what would otherwise be available.
Example: An information technology department that has too many projects, not enough people and a budget that far exceeds their contribution to the organization. A contracted outsourcing agreement will force management to prioritize their requests and bring control back to that area.
5. Staffing Flexibility
Outsourcing will allow operations that have seasonal or cyclical demands to bring in additional resources when you need them and release them when you’re done.
Example: An accounting department that is short-handed during tax season and auditing periods. Outsourcing these functions can provide the additional resources for a fixed period of time at a consistent cost.
6. Continuity & Risk Management
Periods of high employee turnover will add uncertainty and inconsistency to the operations. Outsourcing will provided a level of continuity to the company while reducing the risk that a substandard level of operation would bring to the company.
Example: The human resource manager is on an extended medical leave and the two administrative assistants leave for new jobs in a very short period of time. Outsourcing the human resource function would reduce the risk and allow the company to keep operating.
7. Develop Internal Staff
A large project needs to be undertaken that requires skills that your staff does not possess. On-site outsourcing of the project will bring people with the skills you need into your company. Your people can work alongside of them to acquire the new skill set.
Example: A company needs to embark on a replacement/upgrade project on a variety of custom built equipment. Your engineers do not have the skills required to design new and upgraded equipment. Outsourcing this project and requiring the outsourced engineers to work on-site will allow your engineers to acquire a new skill set.

Ref: http://operationstech.about.com/od/officestaffingandmanagem/a/OutSrcAdvantg.htm

Why outsourcing?
There are many reasons why a company may choose to outsource a particular function of their business. Most managers have the end-result-in-mind that they are going to save time and/or money. Other reasons include:
Resource Shortages Relieved by Outsourcing
A particularly strong reason to outsource involves a shortage of a critical resource. This can be available employees that possess knowledge in a certain area (e.g. engineers), availability of material (e.g. petroleum or minerals) and a labor force at a level and price that will offset the cost of higher prices alternatives.
Outsourcing Provides the Ability to Concentrate On the Core Business
Some necessary, but peripheral operations are outsourced most frequently. This gives the managers the ability to concentrate on the core business issues instead of getting distracted by required, yet minor matters. A good example is a major hospital in our area that outsources its security operations to a third party company specializing in security.
Outsourcing Yields Cost Savings
The prices of labor and/or materials keep increasing and competition keeps forcing prices lower. If there is an outsourcing solution that can save your company money and overcomes the disadvantages of outsourcing, these areas should be investigated.
Outsourcing Provides Flexibility
Seasonal or cyclical demands that ebb-and-flow put varying demands on the resources of the company. An outsourcing contract could provide the flexibility needed to stabilize these varying demands. Example: A business brings in extra accountants during tax season and when being audited by the holding company that owns the business.
Reduce Overhead Costs Through Outsourcing
Some functions require a large outlay of money just to get started. This expenditure could be avoided by contracting with a third party. For example, expanding your call center’s capacity to the point where it exceeds the capabilities of your telephone system.
Common Outsourced Areas
Although many areas and functions are outsourced, here are some of the frequently outsourced areas:
Information Technology Functions
Network and Telecommunications
Human Resources and Insurance Administration
Accounting
Marketing
Security
As you evaluate your outsourcing choices, keep in mind that there are advantages to outsourcing and disadvantages of outsourcing. Look at each one of the outsourcing disadvantages listed below and decide what impact that item would have on your business. If the outsourcing disadvantages outweigh the advantages of outsourcing, then you should avoid outsourcing those operations.

1. Loss Of Managerial Control
Whether you sign a contract to have another company perform the function of an entire department or single task, you are turning the management and control of that function over to another company. True, you will have a contract, but the managerial control will belong to another company. Your outsourcing company will not be driven by the same standards and mission that drives your company. They will be driven to make a profit from the services that they are providing to you and other businesses like yours.
2. Hidden Costs
You will sign a contract with the outsourcing company that will cover the details of the service that they will be providing. Any thing not covered in the contract will be the basis for you to pay additional charges. Additionally, you will experience legal fees to retain a lawyer to review the contacts you will sign. Remember, this is the outsourcing company's business. They have done this before and they are the ones that write the contract. Therefore, you will be at a disadvantage when negotiations start.
3. Threat to Security and Confidentiality
The life-blood of any business is the information that keeps it running. If you have payroll, medical records or any other confidential information that will be transmitted to the outsourcing company, there is a risk that the confidentiality may be compromised. If the outsourced function involves sharing proprietary company data or knowledge (e.g. product drawings, formulas, etc.), this must be taken into account. Evaluate the outsourcing company carefully to make sure your data is protected and the contract has a penalty clause if an incident occurs.
4. Quality Problems
The outsourcing company will be motivated by profit. Since the contract will fix the price, the only way for them to increase profit will be to decrease expenses. As long as they meet the conditions of the contract, you will pay. In addition, you will lose the ability to rapidly respond to changes in the business environment. The contract will be very specific and you will pay extra for changes.
5. Tied to the Financial Well-Being of Another Company
Since you will be turning over part of the operations of your business to another company, you will now be tied to the financial well-being of that company. It wouldn't be the first time that an outsourcing company could go bankrupt and leave you holding-the-bag.
6. Bad Publicity and Ill-Will
The word "outsourcing" brings to mind different things to different people. If you live in a community that has an outsourcing company and they employ your friends and neighbors, outsourcing is good. If your friends and neighbors lost their jobs because they were shipped across the state, across the country or across the world, outsourcing will bring bad publicity. If you outsource part of your operations, morale may suffer in the remaining work force.

Ref: http://operationstech.about.com/od/outsourcing/tp/OutSrcDisadv.htm
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing

Insourcing is the opposite of outsourcing; that is insourcing (or contracting in) is often defined as the delegation of operations or jobs from production within a business to an internal (but 'stand-alone') entity that specializes in that operation. Insourcing is a business decision that is often made to maintain control of critical production or competencies. An alternate use of the term implies transferring jobs to within the country where the term is used, either by hiring local subcontractors or building a facility.Insourcing is widely used in an area such as production to reduce costs of taxes, labor (e.g., American labor is often cheaper than European labor), transportation, etc. Insourcing is loosely referred in call centers who are doing the work of the outsourcing companies.
What is Insourcing?
The opposite of outsourcing can be defined as insourcing. When an organization delegates its work to another entity, which is internal yet not a part of the organization, it is termed as insourcing. The internal entity will usually have a specialized team who will be proficient in the providing the required services. Organizations sometimes opt for insourcing because it enables them to maintain a better control of what they outsource. Insourcing has also come to be defined as transferring work from one organization to another organization which is located within the same country. Insourcing can also mean an organization building a new business centre or facility which would specialize in a particular service or product.
Organizations involved in production usually opt for insourcing in order to cut down the cost of labor and taxes amongst others. The trend towards insourcing has increased since the year 2006. Organizations who have been dissatisfied with outsourcing have moved towards insourcing. Some organizations feel that they can have better customer support and better control over the work outsourced by insourcing their work rather than outsourcing it. According to recent studies, there is more wok insourced than outsourced in the U.S and U.K. These countries are currently the largest outsourcers in the world. The U.S and U.K outsource and insource work equally.

Ref: http://www.outsource2india.com/why_india/articles/outsourcing-versus-insourcing.asp

What is best for an organization?
If an organization has a number of non-core processes which are taking plenty of time, effort and resources to perform in-house, it would be wise to outsource these non-core functions. Outsourcing in this case, would help save on time, effort, manpower and would also aid you in making quicker deliveries to the customers.
If an organization require expertise services in areas which do not fall under core competency, then outsourcing will be a good option as it can get access to expertise services. For reducing costs and making faster deliverables, outsourcing is again a good option.
If work involves production, then it would be more ideal for organization to opt for insourcing, as it can save on transportation costs and exercise a better control over your project.
It is not necessary to choose outsourcing over insourcing or vice versa. A certain organization can outsource and insource at the same time. By outsourcing and insourcing simultaneously, you can have the best of what both offers and business can get a competitive advantage!

_Assignment 7_

2009-09-05T21:53:00.000-07:00

“Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone.”

Let’s first define what is the meaning of telecommunication. From the wikipedia, telecommunication is the assisted transmission over a distance for the purpose of communication. In modern times, telecommunication typically involves the use of electronic devices such as the telephone, television, radio or computer. Telecommunication is an important part of the world economy and the telecommunication industry's revenue was estimated to be $1.2 trillion in 2006. One of them is the Globe Telecom. in which it has been famous this few days for some complains as what PGMA said in her SONA.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications

“Kung noong nakaraan, lumakas ang electronics, today we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth. Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall in accordance with the state of the world economy. But BPO remains resilient. With earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity. Let us have a Department of ICT.”

BPO stands for Business process outsourcing. BPO is a form of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business functions (or processes) to a third-party service provider. From the meaning itself, you can conclude that BPO enhances the flexibility of an organization.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_outsourcing

“In 2001, I said we would finance fully automated elections. We got it, thanks to Congress”

Automated elections is one of the things that you can say development here in Philippines. We all know that from the previous elections we used to do a manual system. And now, by implementing this kind of system it really helps in order to have an easy and fast elections.

_Assignment 6_

2009-09-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

All of us know how useful is the internet. By using internet, whatever you want to searched it will give you the informations you need. As from the meaning that give by the wiki, the internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables wireless connections and other technologies. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of world wide web(WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail, in addition to popular services such as online chat, file transfer and file sharing, online gaming, and voice over internet protocol(VoIP) person-to-person communication via voice and video. As you can see, in all the activities in everyday life, internet is part of us all the time even in the business world. Not only in business world but in all the aspects that comprises in this whole universe.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

Students nowadays are very lucky to have this kind of source of information for it helps them (we) in all situations. It is really a big help in researching all the necessary and needed information by all of us. It is also one way in which you can communicate to other places by just chatting to your loved ones. All of the people really influenced now by this kind of medium.

Now, all universities have computers and have internet connections for it is also introduced to all the students in order to know how to use it. Even kids now know how to use some products of technology.

In case to our university, the USEP, one of the problems is the internet connection. That problem occurred years ago but until now, didn't get a solution.

If I was hired as an IT consultant, that could be amazing...hehe! Well, in that situation, to help my university, after analyzing the problem I will think about the possible solutions to the addressed problem. And then I will tell them what is in my mind (he he...char). If you observed, every time we step on the line, there is what we called “orientation”. Orientation is the act of orienting a person. At Orientation you will have the opportunity to receive assistance in selecting your fall classes, tour the campus, and get to know other new students. Orientation is also a time to address any questions you have for University staff, faculty, and administration. And the universities always do that every year. Not only universities but also in the business world. It has the purpose of introducing a certain thing in order to be learned and understand. Back to the problem of the internet connection, I would initiate to do an orientation. In that orientation, I will be able to express my feelings, opinions and suggestions to all the students regarding the topic which is the low connection. I will be able also to introduce to them the new policies of using computers. I would suggest that it will be strictly given. And because it is of tight rule, there should be a person/or persons to look over the computers. And I hope he/she will do his/her part in order to have an organize way of using computers. Some policies that I hope to be followed are: a.) When entering the computer lab, virtual lib, students should log-in their names and leave their ID's either school id or library id. b.) One student per computer (the person assigned should always check that). c.) When inserting flash drive, they should first scan it.(students should cooperate...hope so!haizt)

Boost optimization
One way to improve internet speed is click boost where it is the one software for all your PC and Internet connectivity speed boosting needs. It is indeed the solution for great power and web speed as it is capable of installing tweaks that lead to improved connection speed regardless of its nature - Dialup, LAN or DSL. It also monitors your computer silently in the background for processes that have been ended improperly, offering methods to free up unused virtual memory.

Boosting can be very helpful in speeding up internet connection. Like active speed, which dramatically improves any home or office Internet connection, including dial-up modems of any speed, and high-speed connections such as cable modems, DSL, ISDN, T-1, LAN, etc. It works with all Internet services, including AOL and local ISPs. Active Speed’s patent-pending Intelligent Optimization Engine will continually monitor and optimize you connection so the more you use Active Speed the faster it gets. Another one is webRocket which is an Internet Optimizer that is powerful, easy-to-use program for Windows 95, 98, NT, Me 2000, and XP which boosts your Internet connection speed by up to 200%.
Dr Speed will boost your Internet connection up to 250%! This will 1.) Optimize your Internet connection 2.) Increase surfing speeds by up to 250%! 3.)Optimize your computer to reclaim lost memory 4.) Shorten download times for all files 5.) Speed up file sharing 6.) Increase computer performance 7.) Decrease wait times while applications work 8.) Run programs simultaneously, without slowing your PC 9.) Display complete information about your computer and much more.

Maybe by picking by just one of the mentioned above, or to prove it helps, the university should test them first in order to determine either which of them is very effective.

Another way to speed up internet connection is to update antivirus everyday. I think this is also one cause of having a low internet connection. It’s because it prone to viruses. Malfunction will possibly occur and we all know and experienced it every time we use the computer. It always hanged. Updating antivirus is not that difficult to do because it’s just need to find the update and then click. There should be one person assigned to update software everyday. It maybe the person whom assigned to look over the computers. By that, we have an updated antivirus.

Increased the bandwidth. A bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bit/s or multiples of it (kbit/s, Mbit/s etc). I think increasing in bandwidth and proper allocation can help improve internet connection.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_(computing)

Maintenance of computer. In all situations, in order to have a well manage and organize environment, the word “maintenance” should not taken to be forgotten. It is always part of daily activities. Maintenance is the act of maintaining or the state of being maintained. Also the work of keeping something in proper condition. From the meaning itself, you can identify and understand that this word is very important in all activities in which it has something to do with keeping all the things that is meant to be kept or to last forever. That can be applied to computers. And like other things, computers also have some basic maintenance. Like Run Disk Defrag, a scan disk, a virus scan, a malware scan, and clear recycle bin. An unusually slow Internet connection experience is often the only sign that computer is infected with viruses or other malware. Delete old files and temporary files. Never allow the free space on C: drive to be less than 10% of the total size or twice the installed RAM (which ever is larger). A well maintained PC will operate much better than a PC that has never had any maintenance. You can google or your local computer repair store should be able to help you with this if you don't know how.

Ref: http://www.answers.com/topic/maintenance

Reset Network. Sometimes restarting home network if you have one will drastically increase the speed of the connection.

Optimize cache or temporary Internet files. These files improve Internet connection performance by not downloading the same file over and over. When a web site puts their logo graphic on every page, computer only downloads it when it changes. If you delete the temporary files it must be downloaded again. If you disable the cache, it must be downloaded every time you view a page that uses it. This can be done by opening Internet Explorer, clicking on "Tools" at the top and choosing "Internet Options". On the General tab, click the "Settings" button next to Temporary Internet Files. Set Check for newer versions to "Automatically". Set amount of disk space to use to 2% of your total disk size or 512 MB, which ever is smaller. On Fire fox, click "Tools" then "Options," and go to the privacy tab. Then click on the Cache tab within this.

Never bypass router. A router is a networking device whose software and hardware are usually tailored to the tasks of routing and forwarding information. Most routers include a firewall that is very difficult for hackers to defeat. Routers connect two or more logical subnets, which do not necessarily map one-to-one to the physical interfaces of the router. If you don't need to use Wireless then hook your computer directly to your router. Routers will only slow down your connection by a few Milli-seconds. You won't notice the difference but the hackers will.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router

Call Internet service provider (ISP). Sometimes you just have bad service. They can usually tell if your connection is substandard without having a technician come to your home. Just be nice and ask. By that, it can lessen the expensive.

Upgrade computers. The term upgrade refers to the replacement of a product with a newer version of that same product. Generally meaning a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to bring the system up to date or to improve its characteristics. Common hardware upgrades are installing additional memory (RAM), adding larger hard disks, replacing microprocessor cards or graphics cards, and installing new versions of software, although many other upgrades are often possible as well. Common software upgrades include changing the version of an operating system, office suite, anti-virus program, or various other tools. Although upgrades are for the purpose of improving a product, there are risks involved—including the possibility that the upgrade will worsen the product. When hardware is upgraded, there is a risk that it will not be compatible with other pieces of hardware in the system. For example, an upgrade of RAM may not be compatible with existing RAM in the computer. Other hardware components may not be compatible after either an upgrade or downgrade, due to the non-availability of compatible drivers for the hardware with a specific operating system. Conversely, there is the same risk of non-compatibility when software is upgraded or downgraded for previously functioning hardware to no longer function. When software is upgraded, there is a chance that the new version (or patch) will contain a bug, causing the program to malfunction in some way or not function at all. Upgrades can also worsen a product subjectively. A user may prefer an older version even if a newer version is perfectly functioning.
If computer is slow, it doesn't matter how fast your Internet connection is, the whole thing will just seem slow. You can only access the Internet as fast as your PC will allow you to.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrade

Replace old cable modem. Any solid-state electronics will degrade over time due to accumulated heat damage. Modem will have a harder and harder time 'concentrating' on maintaining a good connection as it gets older (signal to noise ratios will go down, and the number of resend requests for the same packet will go up). An after-market cable modem as opposed to a cable-company modem will frequently offer a better connection.

Ref: http://www.wikihow.com/Maximize-the-Speed-of-Your-Internet-Connection

Another is blocking some sites that is not supposed to be open and browse. Just open internet connection to the sites that is useful to the students. It’s because downloading media, videos and other entertainment files can also lower the internet connection. Much better to have limited sites and just for school purposes. I know that in this suggestion, lots of students will be protesting, murmuring that against to this kind of policy but knowing that it will be helpful to speed up internet connection, this can be in the positive side.

Buying new computers is one of the options that need to consider in the situation of USEP. Although this university is a government school, if have enough budget then suggest to purchase new computers with high specifications. That will guarantee us a fast internet connection.

_Assignment # 5_

2009-09-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

What are the barriers in IS/IT implementation in a company or organization?

As we all know, IS/IT is very important in a certain company or organization. It is the heart of all operations. As from the meaning given by the wikipedia, the term Information System (IS) refers to a system of people, data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization, and it includes the organization's manual and automated processes. In a narrow sense, the term information system (or computer-based information system) refers to the specific application software that is used to store data records in a computer system and automates some of the information-processing activities of the organization. Computer-based information systems are in the field of information technology. The discipline of business process modeling describes the business processes supported by information systems. And in implementing such system, there could be some negative output and also positive as well. Such barriers that can either be give benefits to the company or not.
As I browse the internet, I found some site that talk about the barriers in information sharing and their management. There’s a lot of different problems occurred in implementing system which are Human resource problems, Technical resource problems, Physical resource problems, Financial problems, Communication problems, Operational problems, Psychological and other problems.

Human resource become one of the problem because you can determine here the insufficient skilled management in information-gathering and retrieving information,insufficient trained personnel at all levels and insufficient communication skills. When creating a system, people ware plays a big important role here. They are the one who plans what will be the system to be created for the company, the one who made the decisions of the system to be used, the one who code it, study it and make it. There should be understanding and cooperation between them to reach their goal for the company.

Technical resource is one of the major problems encountered by some personnel within the system. It has the need for modern information systems, difficulties in setting up information programmed, have problems in data processing, technical constraints to reproducing or copying documents, decoding statistics collected and the structure of statistical reporting, time factor in the collection and updating of information, need for qualitative aspects of information. In creating certain system, the very most difficult is the data collection and especially management. It is because it has something to do with the system. It is where you can examine and evaluate datas collected that will help make a deep and not regrettable decision for each company. Data processing takes a long time to process for it requires a step by step formula to make it effective and can satisfy the needs of end-users.

For physical resource, it has something to do with need for publishing houses and need for documentation centres .The very main problem we all know in management is the financial problem. In the real world, we can say that all business are rolled by the money. To have a small business, one needs capital to go with it. Just like in a well grown business, even though it was successful, changing in technology is what the company should have to consider especially in the company that has something to do with the software and hardware. It includes need for funds for processing, printing and dissemination of information so that everything is flowing through and through and just go with the flow. In many cases, the initial purchase and associated implementation costs for these advanced technologies are known to be significant. Administrative and clinical executives at health care facilities cite the lack of financial support as the biggest barrier to implementing information technology. Only organizations with the financial resources and strategic vision to undertake such an investment purchase these systems especially when competition for capital dollars is high.

Another problem exist in implementing such system is the communication problems. There maybe insufficient understanding of the objectives, goals and aims of programmers that lead to unnnecessities expectations that may occur. One of the requirements in creating a certain system is having a purpose or purposes for a better development. If in that case, people who are involved are having misunderstanding or have conflict even in knowing the objectives of their proposal project, this could be lead to unsuccessful work. This also due to the production of incomprehensible information, top-down approach, languages which is the media of communication, information-filtering, untargeted information and insufficient understanding among interest groups. One of the key to successful in making it is the better understanding of each of the personnel involved in the project.

Operational takes also a big role in the company or organization specifically in the information system side. Such co-ordination and networking among professionals and educational institutions is needed. Need for supportive policy to release information, insufficient access to information source is recognize, of course confidentiality is needed here for security, redundancy of information makes the operations takes a long process and can be trouble minded to the personnel, nature of policy directives, it also needed in identifying sources of information for a better one, centralization of activities to make effective and competitive, and need for systematic documentation.

Psychological can also be a hindrance of course because it is in here where every person whom making the system is involved and they should be comfortable with each other. It is in here where mutual trust between professionals and administrators is needed to make it reliable, also need trust in information sharing to each individual to avoid conflict and to have an understanding, need of goodwill also plays a big role here. As we are in the real world, we can’t deny the fact that each know that each organizations are having competitions in their products. And it is natural for them because we are now in that situation. It is also one of the psychological problems. Another is censorship and war.

And of course, in every problem, there should be solutions. There are some of the things to consider in order making it effectively managed. For the development of human resource, training and other capacity building can be helpful to help individual involved in the process more gain knowledge and skills to have an effective and reliable system. On the other hand, for the development of technical resource, establishing documentation centre (independent non-governmental institution for processing and disseminating information), installing modern technology, creating database and encouraging small-scale publishing can be very useful and helpful for the particular problem to be solved. Furthermore, for the development of physical resource, improving infrastructure and building documentation centre are those things to consider that can be helpful to such problem. And for the improvement of the operations, some helpful and useful things to do are setting clear policy guidelines in information dissemination, encouraging government to have depository laws and enforce them, introducing information system, using mass media, following a bottom-up approach, developing grassroots level inventory of information, creating awareness of the value of information, identifying user information needs, consulting target groups, developing target-oriented and useable information, developing effective system of information management and dissemination; information should be simple, understandable and manageable, institute efficient and effective co-ordination and networking and encouraging a free flow of information — horizontally and vertically.

Ref: http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/erd/english/wgesa/doc/ethiopia/appendice_2.htm

As I further browse the internet, another site I found is from the study in University of New Mexico Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in Latin America. Study revealed the obstacles in science and technology information (S&T) sharing and information technology (IT) developments in the region. These are lack of current information for planning and developing technology, lack of expertise in the use of information, lack of international cooperation in developing the critical mass needed for projects and joint efforts and lack of interaction (lack of confidence and sometimes lack of information) between universities and industries. For the first obstacle above mentioned, it simply signifies that since we are in modern technology or high tech world, we should be updated to something new in able to have a fast software and hardware. The second one determine about the skills in which not sufficient to make an effective and reliable one. The third obstacle emphasizes that in order to communicate to the other areas; we should be cooperative and an active individual as part of the fast of growing world of technology. The fourth one also signifies of having no cooperation between parties that lead them to lack of information needed.

Ref: http://www.unm.edu/~jreenen/dlbook/chapter9.html

Other barriers I found as I searched the net that is related to this assignment are the barriers ideal intergovernmental systems. These are:
A general lack of education and information about both technology and programs. Technology has rapidly permeated our society and most of our institutions, but government organizations often lag behind others. Government staff are often ill-informed and poorly trained in how to use information technology effectively. This is particularly true of the newest technical tools and platforms. Public employees, both users and technicians, seldom have ready access to skills training or professional development that continuously upgrades their knowledge and skills. Conversely, technical staff typically have few opportunities or incentives to learn the goals and operational realities of service programs and therefore tend to focus too sharply on the technical tools and too little on the programmatic reasons for new systems.

Lack of a shared, reliable computing and network infrastructure. Existing state-local systems suffer from the lack of a ubiquitous, consistent computing and communications infrastructure. This makes it difficult or impossible to operate technology supported programs in a consistent way from place to place and organization to organization. It also slows and complicates communication among state and local staff involved in joint programs. New York State is currently embarking on a statewide networking strategy called the NYT that will help solve this problem for future systems.
Goals that are too ambitious for the resources available to achieve them. Project goals are often laudably comprehensive, but the staff, equipment, and dollars allotted to achieve them are often underestimated. Projects that could succeed on a smaller or incremental scale, fail to achieve success when their goals and resources are played out on different scales.

Human and organizational resistance to change. In some cases, new state-local initiatives threaten a comfortable status quo. They promise big changes that not every participant is eager to see. Fear and resistance to change exist even in the best planned and managed projects. A new way of doing business threatens existing personal, organizational, programmatic, and political conditions by rearranging authority, influence, power, resources, and information. This natural resistance is exacerbated when new programs arrive with too little advance information, weak leadership support, inadequate user participation, too little funding, and less than comprehensive training and orientation.
Unrealistic time frames. Many information systems projects take considerably longer than originally planned. State-local projects, with their added layers of legal and organizational complexity are especially vulnerable to this problem. Since so many different organizations are affected by them, time delays lead to serious difficulties in planning for and adjusting to changes in operations.

Organizational, programmatic, technological, and legal complexity. The state-local environment is extraordinarily complex on a number of dimensions: organizational size, number of organizations, number and skills of staff, size of budget, financial practices, legal authority, programmatic focus, and geographic dispersion. Existing systems are an important complicating factor. Only so much change is possible in an environment that depends on information systems already in place — especially ones that were designed and implemented using older technologies. There is little that can be done to simplify this environment, making it essential that project participants have a good understanding of how it will affect their activities.
Changing priorities. Any project that lasts more than a few months is subject to changing priorities for time, money, and attention. This problem is multiplied in state-local projects since each participating organization is likely to be working in circumstances and with responsibilities and priorities that are unique to its own situation.

Overlapping or conflicting missions among the participating organizations. Government organizations at both the state and local level have public service and public accountability goals that can overlap or conflict, even when they are engaged in a joint project. For example, a state agency manager may have the role of project leader which implies facilitation, collaboration, and support for other participants. At the same time, that person’s agency may have oversight responsibility and financial and other regulatory means of compelling local compliance with state requirements. In other projects, non-profit service providers may be project participants sitting at the same table with state or local officials who license and inspect their programs. These roles are all legitimate but can conflict and become a source of difficulty in sorting out the working relationships within the project team.
The barriers are undeniable. But the potential benefits of successful systems are compelling reasons to go forward with well-designed state-local initiatives.

Ref: http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/guides/tying?chapter=3&section=4
Additional barriers: The healthcare industry provides a unique vantage point to examine IT implementations considering the rapid infusion and diffusion of technological innovations in a highly legislated environment. It is further complicated where the primary focus centers not only on delivering quality patient care but also on facilitating continuous billing and reimbursement activities. There is uncertainty surrounding many healthcare organizations’ future technological resource and capital requirements because of the enormous scope of the necessary compliance activities, which have been brought
about by legislation such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This indecision serves to emphasize the need for a higher level of efficiency within the management of IT processes, especially as it relates to the success of technology implementation projects. The idea that successful IT implementation projects can be hindered by factors beyond those that are technology-based is not a new concept within project management education and research initiatives. Organizational factors do affect the success of information systems implementations, but the measure of success “must be individualized to the organization and to the various system users.” Fortunately, most non-technical factors can be controlled — or at least mitigated — within the project process if they are proactively recognized, properly understood, and ultimately expected.

Ref: http://www.ehrscope.com/downloads/may_articles/barriers_ehr_implementation.pdf

Barriers to successful in information technology are one of the studies done by Keith Fletcher and George Wright. In discussing the problems and issues in the use of IT, many different factors are usually mentioned. Schultz and Dewar (1984) referred to the technological challenge to Marketing Management, which they detailed as the way technology was changing the market place and the need to change organizational structures to meet the challenge. Indeed, these two elements, technology and organization are frequently mentioned when impediments to successful implementation or use of IT initiatives are discussed. Rucks and Ginter(1982) reflected on the previous decade and argued that the promise of strategic MIS was largely unfulfilled and that this was due to organizational structure deficiencies, communication problems between users and IS staff, and deficiencies in strategic planning models which did not reflect reality. There are lots of people identify the barriers whom are experts and in overall, researched into the barriers to organizations’ adopting IT intervention are consistent with a general conclusion that organizational barriers are more important than technical barriers, but that is frequently not recognized by the adopting firms. Organizational barriers relate to structural issues, such as fragmentation and poor relations between functional departments and an acceptance, by senior management of the strategic benefits of IT intervention and a clear strategy for its implementation. We all know that database is one of the way in which system is being made into functional and reliable one. And some of the barriers to implementing database management are: high cost of development, high fragmented system, data quality, account-based customer records, no clear DBM strategy, lack of company-wide marketing orientation, lack of direct marketing specialists, fragmented sales and marketing organization, lack of board level backing, agency relations and poor relations between marketing and IT.

And now based to our adopted company, barriers are as follows:

Lack of feelings of "ownership" of a project or execution plans among key employees. - Key employees tend to depend so much on the IT group in the execution of the project. They feel that the project is owned by the IT and they are just participants.

People are not measured or rewarded for executing the plan. – The success of the project greatly depends on the people implementing it. To inspire them, they need to be recognized for a good job, Tying up incentive and reward systems to success is a better way of doing it.

Competing activities distracted attention from implementing this decision. – In implementing projects, focus is vital. Each member in the team including management has to be involved and maintain focus during the implementation processes.

Major problems surfaced which had not been identified earlier. – Project plans that were not thoroughly discussed/reviewed/analyzed will create more problems during implementation. To minimize them, more time and analysis on identification of problems in implementation has to be done. Likewise delineation of work and role clarification should be addressed.

Took more time than originally allocated. – Controllable and uncontrollable factors can influence the time table of the project. The team must develop and evaluate strategies and plans that will expedite implementation.

Training and instruction given to lower level employees were inadequate. – Lack of training creates problem during implementation. Errors will be created, man hours wasted, project timeline exceeded. To address this, staff employees should be provided the needed training & instructions during implementation phase. Likewise, they should have higher involvement in strategic planning inputs and feedback.

Insufficient financial resources to execute the strategy. – Money to fund the project should be readily available at all times.

Information systems used to monitor implementation were inadequate. – Each member of the team has to be regularly updated on the status of the project. There should be tracking and dissemination of information on implementation of major tasks and activities. A development of better information and communication systems and feedback mechanisms is needed. Employees need to be updated on implementation tasks.

First Company Visit:For Major Paper

2009-07-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

HR staff of Lapanday

Me and Venus together with the MIS manager

My visitor's ID

July 8,2009 - One of the HR staff of Lapanday Foods Corporation texted Venus(one of my groupmate) telling the approval of the letter we send to them.

July 9, 2009 - the day we visited our adopted company for our major paper which is the Lapanday Foods Corporation.

_Lapanday Foods Corporation_

2009-07-27T03:13:00.000-07:00

That's my visitor's ID

Their server with us and the MIS manager

Our groupmate(Roy) with the switches and hubs

The Gen set of Lapanday

July 8,2009 - the day we visited the Lapanday Foods Corporation to conduct an interview for our module(second company actually coz our first company is GH Office Depot). And the evidenves are shown above.

_GH OFFICE DEPOT_

2009-07-27T02:57:00.000-07:00

July 3, 2009 - the day in which we visited the GH Office Depot to conduct an interview for our module. Evidences are shown above.

_COMMDAP_

2009-07-27T01:13:00.000-07:00

Last July 2, 2009, we went to Apo View Hotel. Why?It's because we attended the COMDDAP. What is all about COMDDAP?

COMDDAP is an association of the country's top information technolgy businesses. Its primary objective is to promote the sustainable development of the of the country's information technology industry through voluntary collaboration of its member companies. It is the goal of COMDDAP to be able to provide its members general views and updates from different sectors - private and government, and highly regarded individuals to further uplift the morale and knowledge of its organization.

The vision of promoting and elevating the standards of Information technology (IT) in the Philippines fueled a group of prominent computer companies to form the Computer Distributors and Dealers Association of the Philippines or COMDDAP. Its initial member-companies represent the world's leading makers and providers of computer products, solutions and peripherals.

In 1997, the manufacturing sector - represented by industry leaders Hewlett Packard, Epson and Compaq, among others - was integrated into the COMDDAP membership, making the association a more diverse representation of the IT sector and thus the new name, COMPUTER MANUFACTURERS, DISTRIBUTORS AND DEALERS ASSOCIATION OF THE PHILIPPINES.

Since then, COMDDAP has been maintained and financed by its members through dues, fees, contributions or donations, and bannered by these specific objectives:

* Promote the use of information technology and elevate its standards in the Philippines;
* Make computers affordable and available to the masses;
* Provide and create opportunities for users to develop themselves to their fullest potentials;
* Supply the market with quality products at reasonable prices with good after-sales support;
* To work closely with the government, the private sector and international entities in promoting the use of information technology;
* Provide a forum of discussion on matters relating to the compute industry; and
* Foster anf cultivate harmony, cordiality and camaraderie among the members so that they can work together as one for the benefit of the industry.

Foster anf cultivate harmony, cordiality and camaraderie among the members so that they can work together as one for the benefit of the industry.

COMDDAP counts among its achievements the holding of the Annual COMDDAP exhibit, more popularly known as the COMDDAP EXPO, which has become a consistent crowd drawer and has in itself set new records in terms of the quality of exhibit area, exhibitors, visitors, and venues. In fact, COMDDAP EXPO in 1999 marked the first exhibit to have adapted an upgraded booth shell schemes

The annual COMDDAP endeavor encourages its participants to launch their products and services, as well as hold seminars with a variety of topics in the areas of technology, trends, applications, and information management.

COMDDAP's biggest leap was being able to cross boarders or go regional by bringing the exposition down south in Cebu and Davao City, and to even greater heights in the cities of Baguio and Naga, and most recently, in Iloilo City.

Apart from its exhibits, the organization holds COMDDAP Leaning Center Project and Training the Trainors program. This is part of the civic and social responsibility programs that the association has vowed to pursue. The project provides public high school students and public school teachers the opportunity to learn basic computer theories, get hands-on experience, and become familiar with computers.

COMDDAP is likewise involved with the Media-Citizens Quick Count (MCQC) operations in response to the call of national interest. The bulk of equipment and technical support for this endeavor were provided for by the member-companies.

COMDDAP has also pledged to protect its members in addressing the growing issue of software piracy, a practice that has affected and stunted the growth of the local software industry, as well as the countrys trade relations with other countries .In pushing this, COMDDAP has expressed its full support in the local manufacturing of DOS at an affordable price and with after-sales support, as well as launching a massive educational campaign.

Indeed, COMDDAP has gone a long way from a mere assemblage of premier IT companies and enthusiasts. With the support and enthusiasm of its member-companies, COMDDAP expects and looks forward to accomplishing more worthwhile projects in the future as COMDDAP is committed to the stable growth of the Philippine computer industry.

http://www.comddap.org/aboutus.htm

Actually, the exhibit started at 10 am but we arrived there at 1 pm.The seminar took for 3 days. I was so excited to go there because honestly speaking, that is the first time I'm stepped in that kind of hotel....hehe(peace). Well, when we are about to get in, the guard their gave us sticker which served as the identification for us. It look like this:

Included in the exhibit were different new technologies that can be very useful as the world goes in high technology. Different companies were there with their different exhibited products introduced. To mentioned, these are laptops(Neo, Dell, RedFox), LCD's(AOC, Chimie), printers(Canon with lots of functions). Antiviruses were also introduced such as the well-known Mcafee. The thing that attracted to us were the freebies...hehe.Especially the smart sandbox. I got 1 bag of it.

At the first session, we we're late(Venut, Tanya, Emilio and John). When we entered the conference room, it was halfway of their discussions. And they talked about the features of the Jupiter systems incorporated. Honestly speaking, i found myself got no interest about their topic because it was all about the cars. In their database system, it's nice thats all i can say.hehe

The next to present is from the HP company. His name is Leonard Zapa. He is the Market Development Manager of HP Company. I was amazed the way he speaks. I can really say that he is a true genius.hehe...He introduced to us thin client. As i heard from him about the informations of that thin client, it was good. Very useful but so expensive. The thing he lifted is what you called thin client.

Students were very attentive here while he is speaking because after the presentation he gave freebies by questioning. Lucky to those students who got the chance to get freebies...hehe.Unfortunately I'm not one of them. Hmm...we are really in the modern world. Technologies are getting upgraded and improved. Good for us!hehe..Keep it up technology..haha....

_Assignment 4_

2009-07-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

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

1.) http://www.humboldt.edu/~green/

Green Campus Program at Humboldt State University

The Green Campus Program (GCP) empowers students to lead energy efficiency and conservation campaigns at their universities. Green Campus interns design and implement energy efficiency projects. These projects result in measurable energy savings and reduced carbon emissions for the campus. Green Campus interns are also dedicated to educating the campus community on the relationship between energy use and the environment.

http://www.humboldt.edu/~greenhsu/cms/gc/main/more-about-us

What is Green Campus?

The Green Campus Program is a Statewide student-implemented energy efficiency program at 12 UC and CSU campuses and Stanford University. Green Campus is a program of the non-profit organization The Alliance to Save Energy. The Program has been made possible through grants and funding from the investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and the ratepayers of California. HSU Green Campus operates under the auspices of PG&E, SCE, and UC/CSU/IOU Energy Efficiency Partnership.

Top Ten Ways to Reduce Energy Usage

1.
Turn off lights, appliances and computers when not in use. Even for a few minutes!
2.
Replace incandenscent bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs.
3.
Plug electronics into power strips and turn them off when not in use to avoid phantom loads.
4.
Turn down your thermostat and put on a sweater!
5.
Turn your computer Monitor to save mode, screen savers don't save energy! Enable Power Management: In Windows XP; In Mac OS X, You go to 'System Preferences', click on the 'Energy Saver' icon, and set the computer and display (monitor), and Hard Drive to go to sleep. Alternatively, you can use a third-party program, or Press Cmd-Shift-Eject and your OS X Mac will immediately enter sleep mode.
6.
Buy Energy Star® labeled appliances.
7.
When doing laundry, wash full loads and use cold or warm rinses
8.
Take shorter or cooler showers.
9.
Waiting until after 7pm (after peak) to use appliances, such as, washers, dryers, and electric heaters, can help reduce to use of the dirtiest power plants.
10.
Share a fridge with room/suite mates and keep it full.

http://www.humboldt.edu/~greenhsu/cms/gc/main/energy-saving-tips

2.)http://energy.ucsb.edu/EnergyInfo/EnergyTips.htm

UCSB ENERGY

Office Equipment

* Turn off PCs, monitors, printers, copiers, and lights every night and every weekend, If you can't turn off the whole computer, turn off the monitor and the printer
* When purchasing PCs, monitors, printers, fax machines and copiers, consider Energy Star models that "power down" after a user specified period of inactivity
* Enable the energy savings options on existing office equipment
* If appropriate, use ink jet printers - they consume 90% less energy than laser printers
* Implement paper reducing strategies such as double sided printing as a default
* Use e-mail instead of sending memos and faxing documents
* Use shared LAN laser printers instead of individual laser printers
* Use central departmental coffee makers and refrigerators instead of personal units

Lighting

* Turn off all personal task lighting every night and every weekend
* If you are the last person leaving a bathroom or conference room, turn off the lights
* Turn off all unnecessary lighting in corridors
* Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents (contact Physical Facilities)
* Use light colors when redecorating your office space
* Use day lighting from windows or skylights, instead of electrical lighting, when you can

Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning

* Do not tamper with locking thermostat covers
* Where you have control of your thermostat, set the heating set point no greater than 68 degrees and cooling to no less that 74 degrees
* Do not use personal electric strip heaters or personal "window" air conditioning units
* Use blinds to control solar heat gains
* Make sure all heating and air conditioning systems under your control are turned off every night and every weekend
* Large administrative building air conditioning and heating systems will be off at night and weekends, so if you plan to work during these times, dress warmly or appropriately for the conditions

Elevators

* Avoid using elevators; use stairs.

Summary
Approximately one third of UCSB's power usage is under discretionary control of building occupants. If we faithfully use these energy conservation measures, combined with personal efforts and ideas, we can save up to ten percent of UCSB's electrical and natural gas energy.

3.)http://climate.ku.dk/green_campus/

Green Campus at the University of Copenhagen

The aim of Action Plan 2009 for Green Campus is to help the University of Copenhagen to meet its overall strategic goal of "becoming one of Europe's greenest campus areas". This is specified in "Destination 2012".

The University's most significant focus area is energy consumption; however, if we are to meet our targets, we must spread activities over a wide range of environmental areas.

Action Plan 2009 defines Central Administration's campus programme group's work with Green Campus and includes the following elements:

*
Preparation of an energy action plan for the whole university, applicable from 2010 and containing projections up to 2013 when the goal of a 20% reduction is expected to be met.
*
Development of models for the faculties' energy action plans. Faculty management will be offered the opportunity to discuss aspects of the plans, e.g. applications for grants from the University's central energy pool for individual energy projects.
*
Implementation of Green Action, the University of Copenhagen's campaign for energy-conscious behaviour that ran in February and March, and development of follow-up activities in cooperation with the faculties to ensure continued development of energy-conscious behaviour.
* An invitation to tender for an ESCO pilot project for the Panum Building (the Faculty of Health Sciences). A contract will be entered into and investments will begin in 2009 as part of the third wave of the energy action plan.
* A prioritised catalogue of substantial energy saving projects (second wave of the energy action plan), which will be available in the middle of 2009 as input to the University's budget activities.
* A round of applications in which faculties can apply to the energy pool for funds for energy saving initiatives (first wave of the energy action plan).
* Completion of the Green Accounts 2007 for the University of Copenhagen. Preparation of Green Accounts 2008.
* Planning and implementation of the "Greening Universities" workshop at the IARU climate congress in March. An overall goal for reductions at the 10 IARU universities was presented at the workshop.
* Help with development of the IARU took kit for greening, which will be offered to other universities and organisations.
* Development of guidelines for sustainable campus planning. Green Lighthouse will be used as a pilot project for development activities.
* Development of requirements and requests for energy efficient and environmentally friendly construction and conversions at the University of Copenhagen. The project will be developed in collaboration with the state (the Danish University and Property Agency).
* Help to incorporate energy and environmental requirements into relevant, centralised purchase agreements that will be entered into by the purchase department during 2009. A method will be developed for calculating the proportion of green purchases.
* Help with the development of an action plan for Green IT under the auspices of University IT Coordination.

For me, the university can adopt those all concepts that will surely be useful and helpful to the university especially to the students.

_Assignment 2_

2009-07-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

GH OFFICE DEPOT

The company started as small office stationery dealer in 1967. By the grace of God and through its continuous quest for quality and better products to serve its clientele. It has gained the confidence and patronage of its clients. The clientele expanded to what it is today, a big solid majority share in the market.

The company opened its door to the general public in 1995 by opening up a modest yet modern retail outfit. A supermarket-type of stationery store. The concept was overwhelming accepted by the general public.

The retail outlet and network continue to grow and expand. Today, it is a big business outfit housed in a modern complex with all the convenient facilities and amenities.

The GH OFFICE DEPOT carries in its inventory more than 12,000 items of office items to serve its clients. The company keeps on updating and upgrading its list of items to cope up with the current trend in office management. And to serve its clients with the latest and most up-to-date office supplies and equipments.

Buyers, sellers, and others in the energy business need to understand the risks in this very uncertain environment in order to maintain their responsibility to their stakeholders and to protect their bottom line. Organizations can achieve their goals and objectives in this uncertain business environment by developing a comprehensive risk management program.

Every business is vulnerable to a wide array of risks that may or may not be specific to its particular industry, although only some choose to actively acknowledge and address those risks in an attempt to reduce exposure to them. Since the power industry is an inherently risky one, the focus on risk management will only continue to increase as a response. In our business, risks can be identified in virtually all segments of the power supply industry, not just that risk associated with the price of our power or fuels. These segments and can be divided more simply into the three general categories: 1) supply side; 2) demand side; and 3) business-related.

Effective risk management encourages decision-makers to examine their business process across the board to identify the various risks that can affect it, and to begin thinking about how the exposure to these risks can be best mitigated or minimized.

Market Prices
There are aspects of buying or generating power that are always in a state of change. The market prices of fuel and power are good examples of this. The exposure to fuel and power price volatility is the most significant supply-side risk faced by most participants in this market. In the past few years, we have seen tremendous increases in the cost of natural gas, and we’ve seen almost the same in increases in the cost of coal, not to mention the issues of coal transported by rail. The price of fuel is driven by many factors: the balance of supply and demand, industry production capacity, storage levels, market dynamics, as well as others. These factors all contribute to the risk associated with supplying fuel for power plants. Market prices for power are similarly driven by supply and demand, the cost of fuel both today and in the future, and transmission and congestion issues.

Load
Managing the uncertainty of your load is difficult at best, but that does not mean it is impossible. This can be a critical aspect of your business and it is important in helping to achieve your strategic and financial goals.

In order to mitigate the risk of abnormal loads, it is important to try to better understand the forces that can cause high variability. These drivers may include competition, catastrophic events, industrial activity, or technological issues. Some of these areas can be very difficult to predict, making it tougher but not impossible to mitigate such risks in a cost effective manner. Although not always easy, being up to speed in this area is part of risk management planning, including catastrophe plans. You may also be able to exploit the savings from an interruptible product or other demand-side management program where appropriate. For market participants that are subject to weather extremes, there are opportunities available to hedge weather risk through the use of financial hedges that are designed to help protest against this risk.

Financing
Every business needs to borrow money at some point in time, especially if you are on the supply side of this business. Regardless of the purpose, you will desire to obtain financing under the most favorable terms and conditions possible. This is often hard to ensure, particularly because of the fluctuation in interest rates and the demands on the market for money. It is impossible to know whether rates will get better or worse in the future, so a balanced, diversified portfolio of borrowing instruments often produces the most favorable results over time. Furthermore, due to the recent uncertainty in the energy industry, lending institutions are becoming more selective of which entities they lend money. Lenders are now performing more rigorous risk analyses on a borrower\'s financial condition to determine the long-term viability of the borrower or project and the ability to meet debt service payments. Equity requirements and debt covenants are also becoming far more stringent than they have been in years past. Basically, they’re doing their own risk management.

Once the decision to obtain financing has been made, it is important to conduct \"what if\" scenarios to study what the impact of unexpected events could have on your business, as well as to understand if your business has the potential for financial distress. Ultimately, maintaining strong financials through proper rate structure and strong liquidity and equity levels are essential to ensuring the availability of low-cost financing for your organization in the future.

Management
The makeup of an organization can arguably be the most important factor in successfully operating a business. Integrating and processing all of the various operational inputs from your business to formulate a reliable and cost-effective power supply portfolio is more than a challenge. Human capital and the aging of the experienced work force is a topic much discussed today. By taking a systematic approach to your business operations through better understanding the drivers that cause change in your business, and through the corresponding implementation of a comprehensive risk management strategy, managers can take fundamental actions that can help mitigate more effectively the risks associated with their business and have less exposure to management and people issues. Turn in the human capital can be offset by having a well developed process that can be somewhat immune from having to rely on institutional knowledge of seasoned managers. Additionally, creating management policies and controls that administer and measure your organization\'s performance can be advantageous to the ongoing success of your business.

For me, for GH Depot instead of the risk, they are now upgrading to a new system. From dos to windows vista as what their IT personnel said. Risks will happen if it happens that they will be using manually all their task but as of now, technology is a greater help to a certain company or organization especially GH Depot were they have their own website just like the other company in order for their costumers to get updated in their products.

http://ghofficedepot.com/about.htm

_Assignment 1_

2009-07-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

Our assignment no. 1 is to identify a company/organization(s) best IT/IS practices. In connection with this, as of June 24,2009, we(adaptar,amancio,millena,llemit,mancera and gonzales) decided to find certain company or organization to conduct an interview in order to answer a certain assignment. But, we're unfortunate that day because when we are ready with our letter for the approval to our professor, we need to make revisions and he also need first the profile of a company which we don't know yet.

June 25, 2009 - this is the second day of trying our luck. We surfed the internet to find different company's profile to present to our professor with the letter to be approved. But, unfortunately again, our professor is not around. He's very busy with his business appointments. :cry: On the other side, in order to save our time, even though we don't have an approved letter, we tried o call some company. Including to our list of companies and also institutions are:

1.)AMS Group of Companies
2.)Phoenix Petroleum Philippines, Inc.
3.)eTelecare Global Solutions
4.)DCCII
5.)ACDC
6.)HCDC

When we tried to call at Phoenex,the Human Resource Department Head of Phoenix Philippines Inc. is the one who got the call and then she said that we can visit to their company anytime. After hearing the good news, we hurriedly went to their main office which is located at Stella Hizon, Reyes Road, Barangay Pampanga, Davao City. When we arrived there, we're amazed of their big tanks. And then after that, we introduced ourselves where we are from what school to the guards. Two of our classmates,Adaptar and Gonzales had the conversations there inside but unfortunately, we did not have the time to proceed to interview because they need first the approved letter. We're very dismayed. And now, I will just post some informations about the Phoenex and then next time after we can interviewed their in-charge I will post about the assignments.

Phoenix Life First

Phoenix Petroleum Foundation Inc., led by President Cherylyn C. Uy, lives up to its core value of stewardship through projects in service of the community. As stewards, we nurture our resources responsibly. By giving back, we contribute to elevating the quality of life of the people we help, because we believe that life comes first.

The foundation’s primary purpose is to engage, support and or participate in social activities and functions geared towards the development, protection, alleviation, education and or empowerment of the needy, depressed and miserable members of the society.

Products and Services

1.)Terminaling, Hauling and Into-Plane Services
-Phoenix Petroleum services the fuel requirements of diverse industries in Mindanao. For these accounts, Phoenix fuels are delivered to the client's area of operations. For high-volume accounts, the company sets up its own pump station within the client's area of operations.

2.)Lubricants & Car Care
-Lubricants are currently sold in all Phoenix fuel stations throughout Mindanao and Luzon and in selected auto supply stores in Mindanao’s major cities.

Through dealership agreements, Phoenix Petroleum offers for franchising the right to operate a Phoenix gasoline retail service station, and use of the company's retail operations and management system.

In support of its franchisees, Phoenix Petroleum provides the following assistance to the prospective business partner:

Pre-Operations
- Site Evaluation Assistance and Station Lay-Out Assistance
- Pre-opening and start-up assistance

Operations
- Provision of Station Equipment (pumps, tanks and signage)
- The Phoenix Operations Manual
- Technical Training
- Continuous research and product development
- Continuing visits, guidance and business evaluation support

Marketing - Use of Phoenix brand, system and design
- Local marketing and promotional assistance
- Sales territory protection

http://www.phoenixphilippines.com/index.php

July 2, 2009 - Our group visited the GH Office Depot Bldg. to give the approval letter fro our company.

July 3, 2009 - That day, at exactly 2:30 pm, we went to GH Office Depot Bldg. to conduct an interview to their IT personnel. Gladly, we were intertained well there. So, we did not hesitate to do our purpose.

Their IT personnel look like a fresh graduate. We feel comfortable to question him. First, I will give you some informations about their company.

The company started as small office stationery dealer in 1967. By the grace of God and through its continuous quest for quality and better products to serve its clientele. It has gained the confidence and patronage of its clients. The clientele expanded to what it is today, a big solid majority share in the market.

The company opened its door to the general public in 1995 by opening up a modest yet modern retail outfit. A supermarket-type of stationery store. The concept was overwhelming accepted by the general public.

The retail outlet and network continue to grow and expand. Today, it is a big business outfit housed in a modern complex with all the convenient facilities and amenities.

The GH OFFICE DEPOT carries in its inventory more than 12,000 items of office items to serve its clients. The company keeps on updating and upgrading its list of items to cope up with the current trend in office management. And to serve its clients with the latest and most up-to-date office supplies and equipments.

When we asked their IT personnel about their IT best practices, he just mention back upping of files. This is very important in the programmers to back up files in order to have a copy if ever there's malfunction of their computers. He also said that their facilities(technological) can be include to their best practices. Some of which are, cctv, biometric, barcode scanner and inquiry, also their cameras, especially their website. The one whom monitoring or assigned for cctv is their boss. He said that since it is a family owned business, if ever there's some request like for example request of resigning, that will directly go to their boss/manager. There system is just new to upgrade as he said. They were able to used dos operating system but now, for the server they have XP. They have also Windows 2000 and Vista.

http://ghofficedepot.com/index.htm

_Assignment 3_

2009-07-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

Thoughts about automated election with regards to the current issue

Issue:

It was heard and seen in the television about what happened to the two companies namely the Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) and Smartmatic International. According to Comelec Chairman Jose Melo, there are some conflicts between the two companies. It says that the TIM was back outing from the partnership of SMARTMATIC. Some issues they were thinking why it was happened is that there are some politicians manipulating TIM to give up the partnership. Some also said that its issue is about financial which is competing either which of the two can get the higher profit in this automated elections.

With that, Comelec were trying their best to make the two companies joint venture together. They are giving TIM and SMARTMATIC days to fix their problem until last July 7, 2009, there's a news aired about it. This was what happened:a

"The information technology companies that will supply the voting machines and the operational expertise to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the 2010 automated elections submitted their incorporation papers to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday morning, a poll official said.

Smartmatic International and Total Information Management Corp. signed and filed before the SEC their joint venture agreement, which was the source of contention between the two firms last week, Comelec legal chief Ferdinand Rafanan said in an interview.

The poll body was expecting to sign the poll automation contract with the joint venture on or before Friday, he added.

By Monday next week, the Comelec could issue the "notice to proceed" to Smartmatic-TIM so that they could start manufacturing the voting machines in Taiwan.

The Smartmatic-TIM consortium won in the bidding for the contract of the Comelec’s poll automation project with a P7.2-billion proposal. However, the election automation project was almost derailed last week when the Filipino-owned TIM withdrew from its partnership with the Dutch firm Smartmatic over the question of power and control of funds.

Under pressure from Comelec, which threatened to sue TIM, and from other sectors, Smartmatic and TIM patched up their differences late last week ."

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20090706-214142/Smartmatic-TIM-give-SEC-joint-venture-papers

What was really the "Automated Election"?

Based on the Senate Bill No. 2231: (13th Congress) which entitled:

AN ACT AMENDING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8436, ENTITLED AN ACT AUTHORIZING THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS TO USE AN AUTOMATED ELECTION SYSTEM IN THE MAY 11, 1998 NATIONAL OR LOCAL ELECTIONS AND IN SUBSEQUENT NATIONAL AND LOCAL ELECTORAL EXERCISES, TO ENCOURAGE TRANSPARENCY, CREDIBILITY, FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY OF ELECTIONS, AMENDING FOR THE PURPOSE BATAS PAMBANSA BLG. 881, AS AMENDED, REPUBLIC ACT NO. 7166 AND OTHER RELATED ELECTIONS LAWS, PROVIDING FUNDS THEREFOR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

On section 2 on the said article defines the automated election system as:
A system using appropriate technology for voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, transmission of election results and other processes in the conduct of electoral exercises.

Equipments or components that are being used for Automated Election:

1. Counting machine - a machine that uses an optical scanning mark-sense reading
2. Data storage device - a device used to electronically store counting and device of any similar advanced technology to count ballots; canvassing results, such as, memory pack or diskette;
3. Computer set - a set of equipment containing regular components, i.e., monitor, central processing unit or CPU, keyboard and printer;
4. National Ballot - refers to the ballot to be used in the automated election system for the purpose of the May 1998 elections. This shall contain the names of the candidates for president, vice-president, senators and parties, organizations or coalitions participating under the party-list system;

This ballot shall be counted by the counting machine:

5. Local Ballot - refers to the ballot on which the voter will manually write the names of the candidates of his/her choice for member of the House of Representatives, governor,vice-governor, members of the provincial board, mayor, vice-mayor, and members of the city municipal council.
6. Board of Election inspector - there shall be a Board of Election Inspectors in every precinct composed of three (3) regular members who shall conduct the voting, counting and recording of votes in the polling place.

Many questions and complains arise from this issue such as:

* How reliable can be the automated election system be?
Some people said that anything that is being done through computerized would be easier to falsify.
* In the side of indigenous people it would be hard for them to vote if the election will be done automatically because some of them are illiterate.

Advantages of the system to this coming 2010 election:

* There will be no ballot box snatching as the ERs are transmitted electronically for canvassing
* There is less work for the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI)
* If all precincts are connected, national results can be produced within one hour after the close of voting
* There is automated tally of votes at the city/municipal level
* The DRE can include an automated voter validation system
* Canvassing at the city/municipal and provincial levels is almost instantaneous
* There is an instantaneous tally of votes at the precinct level
* Ballots are pre-printed and voters simply mark choices

http://hubpages.com/hub/Automated-Election-Are-we-ready

For me, since we are in the modern world, technology changes.And each corporation or company keeps on updating to the new one. With this automated election, it will become easy to the people assigned during election time to keep things that involved in the election process. Maybe there will be some leakage but results will be come out in just an hour if it was. So, go to the automated election! Just hoping cheating please be avoided to the politicians..aw..haha!peace... :-)

_COMMDAP Experience_

2009-07-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

July 2, 2009 - That day is an exciting day to me because we went to the Apo View Hotel in which its my very first time to lodge at a hotel.....hehe(how ignorant I am). The reason behind why we went to that hotel is because we undergone a seminar that was called COMMDAP Davao Seminar. Included here we're different new technologies that can be very useful as the world goes in a high technology. Different companies we're there at the Apo View Hotel with their different exhibited products introduced. To mentioned some of the products, hardware and software were laptops(NEO, DELL, REDFOX), LCD's(AOC, CHIMIE), printers. Antivirruses were also introduced such as the well-known Mcafee, another one is the Norton Internet Security. Most attracted to us were the freebies...haha.Especially the Smart Sandbox. They gave some free slings and bag. Unfortunately, I was not able to avail of their slings because it was already sold already...haha..:-). But I have taken a bag. Actually, the exhibit started at 10 am but we arrived at 1 pm. That seminar will lasted in three days starting July 2-4. At the first session, we're late(Venut, Tanya, Jopia, Manlangit). When we entered the conference room, it was halfway of their disscussions. And the topic they talked about was the features of their services about cars. Thier highlights were about the systems involving car services like how the technicians do their job and etc. The second session was very interesting to all the listeners because the speaker gave them freebies by answering their questions at the end So, everybody payed attention to the speaker..hehe! And it was all about thin client. For me, the thin client is very useful but as usual, very expensive....haha! As what I understand the thin client, it is the modern version of the CPU.....:-)

_Tough day_

2009-06-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

This day is a tough day its because we tried to find a company/organization to conduct an interview regarding our assignment in MIS. We tried to call some company but didn't got a response. Glad to hear that when we call at Phoenex, they said we can visit anytime. After hearing that good news, we hurriedly go to their main office located at lanang. But unfortunately, we didn't get the interview because they need first a letter to be approved(nakakaloka).Our professor is not around so we didn't get the approval letter from him(hahay buhay).It's really unfortunate coz we can't submit the assignment in its due date. So late na talaga!!!tsk3x.........Sorry Sir. hope you can understand.

That's all for today....Have a nice day to all of you!!!c yah next time...:-)

_Definitions of MIS_

2009-06-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

MIS (management information systems) is a general term for the computer systems in an enterprise that provide information about its business operations. It's also used to refer to the people who manage these systems. Typically, in a large corporation, "MIS" or the "MIS department" refers to a central or centrally-coordinated system of computer expertise and management, often including mainframe systems but also including by extension the corporation's entire network of computer resources.

In the beginning, business computers were used for the practical business of computing the payroll and keeping track of accounts payable and receivable. As applications were developed that provided managers with information about sales, inventories, and other data that would help in managing the enterprise, the term "MIS" arose to describe these kinds of applications. Today, the term is used broadly in a number of contexts and includes (but is not limited to): decision support systems, resource and people management applications, project management, and database retrieval applications.

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid80_gci214098,00.html

A management information system (MIS) is a subset of the overall internal controls of a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies, and procedures by management accountants to solving business problems such as costing a product, service or a business-wide strategy. Management information systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. Decision Support Systems, Expert systems, and Executive information systems.

An 'MIS' is a planned system of the collecting, processing, storing and disseminating data in the form of information needed to carry out the functions of management. In a way it is a documented report of the activities those were planned and executed. According to Philip Kotler "A marketing information system consists of people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers."

The terms MIS and information system are often confused. Information systems include systems that are not intended for decision making. The area of study called MIS is sometimes referred to, in a restrictive sense, as information technology management. That area of study should not be confused with computer science. IT service management is a practitioner-focused discipline. MIS has also some differences with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as ERP incorporates elements that are not necessarily focused on decision support.

Professor Allen S. Lee states that "...research in the information systems field examines more than the technological system, or just the social system, or even the two side by side; in addition, it investigates the phenomena that emerge when the two interact."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_information_system

"A management information system (MIS) is a system or process that provides
the information necessary to manage an organization effectively.MIS and the
information it generates are generally considered essential components of
prudent and reasonable business decisions.MIS provides the means through which the institution's activities are monitored and information is distributed to management, employees, and customers."

"And for me, either it is MIS or LMIS, what matter most are the informations and well-organized data that can be used and the functionalities of a certain system for the benefit of everyone. "

_12 Effective Leadership Roles_

2009-06-23T05:05:00.000-07:00

A.) Create an Inspiring Vision & Lead by Example

1. Create an inspiring vision; establish shared values; give direction and set stretch goals
2. Manage change strategically; take risks, create change; lead change; manage resistance to change
3. Lead by example; practice what you preach; set an example,and share risks or hardship
4. Demonstrate confidence; win respect and trust without courting popularity

B.) Empower, Inspire, and Energize People

5. Be enthusiastic; inspire and energize people; create a positive work environment
6. Empower people; delegate authority; be open to ideas; have faith in the creativity of others
7. Communicate openly and honestly; give clear guidelines; set clear expectations
8. Empathize; be willing to discuss and solve problems; listen with understanding; support and help

C. Build and Lead a Team

9. Use team approach; facilitate cooperation; involve everyone; trust your group; rely on their judgment
10. Bring out the best in your people; have common touch with them; coach and provide effective feedback
11. Permit group decision; help your team reach better decisions
12. Monior Progress, but don't micromanage; lead your team; avoid close supervision; do not overboss; do not dictate; lead team self-assessment

http://www.1000advices.com/guru/leadership_12roles_vk.html

_Mintzberg: The Managerial Roles_

2009-06-22T01:53:00.000-07:00

Managerial roles stands for those behaviors that managers employ to carry out the basic functions of their work: managing relationships, managing information, and managing action.
Current thought suggests that although all of the roles are important, the need for a manager to
enact a particular role shifts as a function of context. Managerial work in an international business represents a particular type of context. (Chris van Overveen - Senior Consultant Trimitra Consultants)

To meet the many demands of performing their functions, managers assume multiple roles. A role is an organized set of behaviors. Henry Mintzberg has identified ten roles common to the work of all managers. The ten roles are divided into three groups: interpersonal, informational, and decisional.

1.)The interpersonal roles - ensure that information is provided.

In the figurehead role, the manager represents the organization in all matters of formality. The top level manager represents the company legally and socially to those outside of the organization.The supervisor represents the work group to higher management and higher management to the work group.

In the liaison role, the manger interacts with peers and people outside the organization. The top level manager uses the liaison role to gain favors and information, while the supervisor uses it to maintain the routine flow of work.

The leader role defines the relationships between the manger and employees.

The direct relationships with people in the interpersonal roles place the manager in a unique position to get information.

2.)The informational roles - link all managerial work together.

In the monitor role, the manager receives and collects information.

In the role of disseminator, the manager transmits special information into the organization. The top level manager receives and transmits more information from people outside the organization than the supervisor.

In the role of spokesperson, the manager disseminates the organization's information into its environment. Thus, the top level manager is seen as an industry expert, while the supervisor is seen as a unit or departmental expert.

The unique access to information places the manager at the center of organizational decision making.Thus, the three informational roles are primarily concerned with the information aspects of managerial work.

3.)The decisional roles make significant use of the information.

In the entrepreneur role, the manager initiates change.The manager initiates a series of related decisions/activities to achieve actual improvement.

In the disturbance handler role, the manger deals with threats to the organization.The role involves stepping in to calm matters, evaluate, re-allocate, support - removing the thorn - buying time.

In the resource allocator role, the manager chooses where the organization will expend its efforts.

In the negotiator role, the manager negotiates on behalf of the organization. The top level manager makes the decisions about the organization as a whole, while the supervisor makes decisions about his or her particular work unit.

The supervior performs these managerial roles but with different emphasis than higher managers. Supervisory management is more focused and short-term in outlook.

Thus, the figurehead role becomes less significant and the disturbance handler and negotiator roles increase in importance for the supervisor.

Since leadership permeates all activities, the leader role is among the most important of all roles at all levels of management.

The performance of managerial roles and the requirements of these roles can be played at different times by the same manager and to different degrees depending on the level and function of management. The ten roles are described individually, but they form an integrated whole.

http://www.trimitra.com/articles/roles.html

_Introduction for MIS1_

2009-06-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

Greetings to everyone!!

Good day....I am Ilyn P. Mapalo, 19 3/4 years of age(hehe), fourth year in college but third year in standing(pd maulaw??hehe).Well, I expect MIS1(Management Information System) to be one of the difficult and challenging subect in this semester ..hehe!But it is also expected that at the end of this semester, we could learn so many things about management as from its name itself that can help and apply in our future living.Hmmm....I expect from our professor to be a kind and considerate facilitator in this subject.

Gud Luck to us and GOD Bless

_Assignment # 9_

2008-10-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

Definitions for Human Resource Management:

1.) For Torrington and Hall (1987)they define personnel management as being:“a series of activities which: first enable working people and their employing organisations to agree about the objectives and nature of their working relationship and, secondly, ensures that the agreement is fulfilled".

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personnel_management

2.) A personnel management system allows your human resource team to manage the best candidate for each open job requisition.

source:http://www.taleo.com/research/g-personnel-management-11.php

3.) Personnel Management have the responsibilities related to hiring and firing staff, supervising, promoting, organizing, motivating staff, and developing their professional capabilities. Personnel management requires strong interpersonal communication skills and skills in group facilitation, conflict resolution, and problem solving.

source:http://erc.msh.org/staticpages_printerfriendly/2.2.3_gmt_English_.htm

4.) Personnel Management is the administrative discipline of hiring and developing employees so that they become more valuable to the organization.

source:http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/personnel-management.html

5.) Personnel Management is within organizations that employ people, this is the function with policy responsibility for the selection and recruitment of staff, training, performance assessment, career development, disciplinary proceedings, pre-retirement advisory work, equal opportunities policies, pay bargaining, and industrial relations.

source:http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Definition_of_personnel_management
Definitions for Human Resource Management:

1.) According to While Miller (1987) HRM relates to:"those decisions and actions which concern the management of employees at all levels in the business and which are related to the implementation of strategies directed towards creating and sustaining competitive advantage" .

sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personnel_management

2.) Human Resource Management includes all methods and functions concerning the mobilization and development of personnel as human resources, with the objective of efficiency and greater productivity in a company, government administration, or other organization.

source:http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Human_Resource_Management

3.) Human resource management includes recruitment and selection of appropriate staff and management of the employment relationship, which includes contracts, collective bargaining, reward systems and employee involvement, and considers the strategic and operational view of human resource requirements.

source:http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/wps/media/objects/1513/1550326/glossary/glossary.html

4.) Human resource management is responsible for how people are treated in organizations. It is responsible for bringing people into the organization, helping them perform their work, compensating them for their labors, and solving problems that arise.

source:http://www.answers.com/topic/human-resource-management

5.) Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization.

source:http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/f/hr_management.htm

All the definitions that were given are true. It maybe in different terms and sentences, but the thoughts are all the same....that's all I can say!!hehe...peace yow...

_Assignment # 8_

2008-09-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

Last wednesday, our group went to our adopted company which is the City Hall of government to interview a personnel for this assignment. Luckily, we were entertained by them especially the officer of that day.

The one we interviewed was Mrs. Florita L. Oligarto. She is the HRMO 3 in the city hall. First, she said that their management at first was only Personnel Management. Then it was developed into Human Resource Management. Personnel Management was only limited to hiring, recruitment, preparation of documents and appointments. But, the functions was expanded and was into comlexities. From personnel link to paradigm. Men of HR can be developed as well. Now, there's more divisions in their government. Included are personnel planning division, personnel selection and transaction, personnel benefits and welfare, human resource development division which provides carrer function to employees.

In terms of their recruitment, they provides certain procedures that should be meet by the applicants in order for him/her to qualify. The applicants will take qualifying exam and then go to personnel selection board for the interview.Credentials are also evaluated and prepared a comparative report. Last, approval by the city mayor. Also, the applicants should take civil service and meet the minimum standard. She said that "Not whom you know but how you possess your ability on the job".

Another, they provide training for their employees because it is needed and it was skill requirement for them to do their work rightfully.Additional is their benefits for the employees. They provides annual benefits. They also give incentives to those employee whom they seen who worked well. They have also performance rating which is done every six months. If an employee done a good performance in the succeeding semester, 1st and 2nd, they give him/her 2000 pesos. But if only she/he done it only in one semester, he/she will recieve 1000 pesos. Once a year, they have travel package of 300 pesos each and an exemplary achievement of 100 pesos to unwine theirselves from the stressful work.

For the improvement in system and processes, she said that in her work, she was developed. "The job was fulfilling though it is stressful", even though she work beyond office hours. She said that she meet more than enough its expectation.Their faculties are ok, computers have internet connection and air conditioned.The relationship between employees she said, it was normal if there's no conflict. Maam Florita also said, "Though they are saying(people)that employees of the city hall is not good", they take it as a challenge to motivate their employees and dealing good with the client.When we asked her the role of HRM, it was to meet the needs of the clients.She said that they are excellent?!And Ma'm Oligario believed that HR can be human capital!
Hmmm...for me, as I heard that information about them, I feel so satisfied especially in their benefits....hehe!Also in their recruitment that "Not whom you know but the ability you posses". I agree with her!:-)

_Third Journal_

2008-09-07T22:57:00.000-07:00

September 5, 2008;

That is the first day of ICEAN Festival. Because we were only few, we are all just trying to enjoy ourselves. Besides that was also the day in which the ICEAN students can relax from all stressful subjects...hehe!

In that morning, Mr. Gamboa checked our ghannt chart because when Kathy, Jeanette and Jovy passed it on Sept. 3, Sir was not around.After checking, Mr. Gamboa had seen a lot of mistakes. So, instead of enjoying ourselves, we revised it first immediately. And we're so glad because we finally have done it correctly and ready to post..ahehe!

Afternoon of that day, I felt so boring, so I decided to make"aliw" myself. I make "cheer2x" to the players as what other did.....hehe...I also tried to make "sali2x" to my classmates in playing volleyball just to have fun...That was 3 o'clock i think that time and we stopped at the time of 5 o'clock!!:-)

That night I enjoyed myself because it was a musical contest where all the participants were making their presentation so funny!hehe...Lalo nah their jingles where the lyrics are all about our subjects and teachers that talked about our failures...haha!Really a good show...hehe!After the show, we had picture taking. We also danced "gmay"..ahehe!And the most center of attraction that night who danced and danced(walang pakialam kung sino ang tumitingin sa kanya bastah sayaw lang xa ng sayaw...haha) was no other than Miss Karen Palero!hehe....GRAVEH tlaga!!whooo...ahehe! Bilib au q sa iyah vah....hehe!la lang...Not knowing, it was already raining outside.Even though it's raining, we really enjoyed that night.:-)

September 6, 2008;

Second and last day of our festival. I arrived at school around ten o'clock. I thought our festival was already finished because I did'nt see any of my classmates or even other ICEANS. It was also the day of Applied Economics(mingaw au ang ICEAN , lingaw au ang Applied Economics...hahay). And another, org. day sa civil engineering bayot!!haha...lingaw jud au cla....Again, to enjoy myself, we went to AVR in engineering building to watch their literay and musical competition. Their presentation was really enjoyable(may pah cla...ahehe). After that, we played badminton.(la man lain mbuhat...:-)).
That night was the musical event. It includes folk dance, interpretative dance, contemporary dance, and mtv spoof. It was ok. We enjoyed. Mas more na enjoy mi when the swiss shirt man yata 2 ang ni dance..hehe!(mga wafo au cla...hehe!). Before the show was end, it rained. And so, I left.I don't know what happened next and who's the winner(bastah ni uli naq...ahehe).

The End!:-)

_Second Journal_

2008-09-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

September 3, 2008;

That is the day when our group planned to make a ghannt chart.I thought that making a ghannt chart is an easy thing to do but it is not. We made it in the boarding house of our groupmate, Venus Millena. We we're able to finish it, but each one of us are not satisfied. We stayed there until 10 o'clock. So, we decided to finalize it that next day.

September 4, 2008;

That day was tuesday. After that class in java, we went again to the boarding house of Venus to finish the ghannt chart. While doing that, some of us played scrabble...hehehe!!just to have fun....:-)After an hour i think, it was finished and ready to print and check to Mr. Gamboa...

To be continued........hehe!la lng...:-)

_First Journal_

2008-08-14T04:49:00.000-07:00

July 1,2008;

That day, we went to find a company whom dealing with Human Resource Management(HRM) for this subject. Upon thinking where we have to go,our group members decided to have a luck in city hall.Fortunately,when we arrived there,we were treated well.They gave us the chance by such giving a letter to be approved by them.After that, we also try another one but unfortunately,we haven't found any other company so, we just go home and rest...hehe

July 4,2008;

Our group members passed the letter that Sir Gamboa approved to the city hall and they said that we can now set an schedule for the interview.Also on that day,Kathy,Jovy and Jeanette gave a letter to a certain company which is SixEleven call center company.Several days, Jovy was trying to call there and finally they approved it.

July 16,2008;

That day, is a very trembling day because we went to sixeleven call center company to start our interview. All of us were so nervous because we are going to a company where all the people there speaking english fluently,to the highest level...hehe!But we are so blessed because all the people there are very approachable.Especially to the one we interviewed who is the assistant of HRM.Ma'am Arlene,who is the director of their HRM,is not there because she is in their main company.But we were suprised and shocked because suddenly Ma'am Arlene arrived.With her looks pa lang, kurog na mi...haha!!We interviewed her about CreatingHuman Resource Information System(HRIS) which is our topic and she answered it fluently.Also,like other people she is also nice because she invited us to avail and join to their free english tutorial.Siyempre, sino ba nman ang hindi gustong mka avail nu'n,so we find it very interesting but we said that we will see because we have our class.If we have our time why not di ba??hehe...Sobrang thankful kami kasi nagawa namin ang dapat naming gawin nang hindi kami napahiya!hehe....GO girls...ajah!!Till next time....hehe

_Assignment # 7_

2008-08-13T02:38:00.000-07:00

The State of the Nation Address is an annual event in the Republic of the Philippines, in which the President of the Philippines reports on the status of the nation, normally to the resumption of a joint session of the Congress. The address is also an opportunity for opposition parties to protest against the government.

Actually, I didn't have oppurtunity to hear her SONA because I was in school at that time. And also, I don't want to hear it...hehe!!peace....:-)

To be able to answer our assignment, I just read the article in the internet the SONA of our President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Delivered on Monday, July 28, at 4:00 P.M.

We are task to evaluate the SONA in which we are going to get some points that is related to our subject HRM. And for me, some of the areas are the following;
-Training
President said that 7.74 million took technical and vocational courses over the last seven years, double the number in the previous 14 years in 2007 alone, 1.7 million graduated.

Training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies.It helps people to maintain, upgrade and update skills throughout working life.

-GSIS pensions have been indexed to inflation and have increased every year since 2001. Its salary loan availments have increased from two months equivalent to 10 months, the highest of any system public or private—while repayments have been stretched out.Pag-Ibig housing loans increased from P3.82 billion in 2001 to P22.6 billion in 2007. This year it experienced an 84% increase in the first four months alone. Super heating na. Dapat dagdagan ng GSIS at buksan muli ng SSS ang pautang sa pabahay. I ask Congress to pass a bill allowing SSS to do housing loans beyond the present 10% limitation, said the president.

By this, the employees will be eager to work hard and put their full effort to improve their organization.

-"Our P 350 million training partnership with the private sector should qualify 60,000 for call centers, medical transcription, animation and software development, which have a projected demand of one million workers generating $13 billion by 2010. " said by the president.

This will benefit who don't have jobs.By this project, people will have the chance to find and have their jobs so that people will use their knowledge and skills in improving certain organization.

-President said,"My responsibility as President is to take care to solve the problems we are facing now and to provide a vision and direction for how our nation should advance in the future."

For that statement of her, I hope that she can do it not just by saying it but by doing an action!!

GOD BLESS US!!hehe

_Something to Ponder_

2008-08-10T03:17:00.000-07:00

The most destructive habit is WORRY.
The greatest joy is GIVING.
The greatest loss is of SELF-RESPECT.
The most satisfying work is HELPING OTHERS.
Theugliest personality trait is SELFISHNESS.
The most endangered species are DEDICATED LEADERS.
The greatest natural source is our YOUTH.
The greatest "shot in the arm" is ENCOURAGEMENT.
The greatest problem to encounter is FEAR.
The most effective sleeping pill is PEACE OF MIND.
The most crippling failure diseases are EXCUSES.
The most powerful force in life is LOVE.
The most dangerous pariah is GOSSIPER.
The world most incridible computer is the BRAIN.
The worst thing to be without is HOPE.
The deadliest weapon is the TONGUE.
The two most powerful filled word is "I CAN".
The greatest asset is faith in the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
The most worthless emotion is SELF-PITY.
The most beautiful attire is SMILE.
The most prided possession is INTEGRITY.
The most powerful channel of communication is PRAYER.
The most contagious spirit is ENTHUSIASM; and
The most IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE IS GOD.

_We Grow in Love_

2008-07-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

A life of service to others is the best way to let people know that

GOD is present in the world and GOD loves all of us.We are living

a life of service when we are just & charitable;when we reach

to others, especially those in need and when we help build a better

society by promoting justice and peace....BOW!!!:-)

_Schools for Robots_

2008-07-27T02:52:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of school without a single living student? Is there such school?
Why,yes! A school for robots. All the students here, come from the robot factory.
The robots do exactly what is needed to be done. It is because these robots are
programmed in such a way that all the teachers have to do is press a button and
students will do exactly what is asked of them. hehe....chaar lNg!!!

_Your Own Story_

2008-07-27T02:43:00.000-07:00

Has anybody told you,that every thought you think
Makes lines just the little lines you write with pen and ink?

And thought of anger,fear or hate,will spoil the prettiest face
By making ugly little lines which nothing can erase.

But thoughts of love and kindness and joyousness and cheer
Make every pretty lines all fine and firm and clear.

And by and by your face becomes an open storybook
Which every one can see and read each time they chance to look.

So if you want your face to tell a story sweet and fairYou must see that only good thoughts do the writing there.

_Assignment # 6_

2008-07-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

"God gave us our lives.Because life is a gift from God,every life is sacred and we should respect that life"

Human beings are the people living here on earth.And why we are here it's because of our purpose.We are created by God in His likeness and image.And we are send here to take take care of what He was created.God gave us the all the things of what a person comprises and composes according to His will. Especially the mind to be smart enough how to handle things proper.Moreover, to be responsible enough to manage all the resources that takes part of this world.Most especially in an organizations where the people should have the capability in making a useful plan in order for it to be a competitive one.Because an organization cannot stand alone unless with the presence of a human being whose gonna be the one to manipulate.And human beings have collectively become one of the most potent forces here on earth. But seems nowadays,the challenges and difficulties that each one of us facing now become more complicated. And no other one to blame but also the people themselves.We are all aware of that situation.Nobody can deny the truth.And we also know that we have different personality so why just understand each other.The only problem with us people is that we make a small problem become worst.That's why we are also the worst managed resources here on earth.As a human being,given the critical mind to settle things out should be responsible enough to understand things in order to avoid trouble.Even ourselves don't know how fix problem well.And managing a resources is not an easy work to do.So, people should cooperate to make an organization worthwhile.

2008-07-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

Human beings have collectively become one of the most potent forces here on earth.

_Assignment # 5_

2008-07-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business.

For me, Human resource management(HRM) is included in BSIT and BSCS curriculum because from the word itself,it deals with people. It signifies that people involve always in everyday activities because without the peole,everything is useless.
Now, in order to have a person who can manage and be the manager,the management will get a professional one that can do anything and have the intellect to do the job .

This subject was given to us,students in order to learn something and know all the informations and details that comprise with it. Because in the near future we will be involve in that work. And also, by studying HRM subject, because people is a complex one, we will know how to mingle with other people and have a good relationship with them. That's it is included in our curriculum.

_Assignment # 4_

2008-07-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

Corporation is a business in which large numbers of people are organized so that their labor and capital are combined in a single venture.Modern corporations include not only profit-making firms but also educational,scientific,recreational,charitable and religious organizations.

The size and economic power of some industrial agglomerations have long been a subject of controversy. Many of today's corporations have thousands of employees and control billions of dollars in assets.

The enormous debts taken by the new companies often left them too weakened to find new technologies or compete in contracting markets. Added to it was the intense competition propelled by integration of world markets,freer trade, and new technologies.Thus, in this 21st century,companies were forced to become more efficient,reduce costs, and compete more effectively to survive in the new global village. And also, a rash of bankruptcies and corporate restructuring and downsizing to meet new realities. In the wake, hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs,lenders went unpaid,retirees lost pensions, and unwary stockholders lost their investments.

Now, large corporations in general, and multinational corporations in particular, will face new challenges to their operational autonomy, investment safety, and profitability as they evolve and adapt to meet new societal expectations. New global forces in the form of international agencies and internationally linked religious and other public-interest groups will be monitoring their performance to ensure that their activities benefit all concerned parties.

_Assignment # 3_

2008-06-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

Downsizing or layoff is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or (more commonly) a group of employees for business reasons, such as the decision that certain positions are no longer necessary or a business slow-down or interruption in work.

NBC Universal rolled out Thursday a wide-sweeping series of changes and cuts designed to reduce about $750 million from the company by the end of 2008 under its NBCU 2.0 program announced earlier this year.

The restructuring, long rumored, will reduce NBC Universal's work force by about 700 positions, 5% of the work force. It wasn't immediately clear where the jobs would cut or whether there would be layoffs, buyouts or jobs left unfilled. Among the moves NBC Uni said it would make are the moving of MSNBC's headquarters from Secaucus, N.J., to 30 Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan where the rest of the NBC News operation is located; a consolidated news operation in Burbank that will include NBC, Telemundo, KNBC, KVEA and KWHY; and what the company called the strategic realignment of domestic theatrical, home entertainment and television marketing and distribution divisions. There will be other consolidations at Universal Studios as well. NBC Uni executives have said that the 2.0 changes were needed to deal with the shifting media landscape and to maximize digital revenues.

"NBC Universal 2.0 will prepare us for future growth from a position of strength," NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said in a prepared statement. "With new momentum in prime time at NBC, continued leadership from NBC News, real growth at Telemundo, and solid performances in virtually every other division of our Television Group, there is no better time to re-engineer the company for the revolutionary changes to come."

Sources cautioned that the cuts are not expected to be implemented Thursday but rather that there will be a discussion of the approach the company intends to take over the long term. Reps for NBC Uni TV Group declined comment late Wednesday.The NBC News operation is said to be eyed for significant reductions as NBC Uni moves toward centralizing newsgathering and production operations throughout the company.Also located in Secaucus is Weather Plus, the joint venture between NBC and its affiliates, providing a digital competitor to the Weather Channel, and NBC's national and international news desks. The move would reunite the news desks with the rest of the NBC News operation at 30 Rockefeller Center.

Some layoffs also are expected to affect NBC's entertainment division, which could face a reorganization in an effort to realign its programming and production operations to be more attuned to producing a wider range of content for platforms beyond the NBC broadcast network and cable outlets including USA Network, Sci Fi Channel and Bravo. While parent company General Electric signaled last week that NBC Uni will report a profit increase during the fourth quarter, the division reported a 10% decline in third-quarter earnings.

NBC has been mired in fourth place among the broadcast networks for the past two years in key demographics, though it has perked up one month into the new TV season, with primetime ratings up 9% in the 18-49 demographic.

The NBC broadcast network claims the sleeper hit of the season so far in the rookie drama "Heroes," which has performed well for the network on Monday nights. Two other units likely to face significant cuts are Telemundo, the Spanish-language network NBC acquired in 2001, and NBC News Channel, the Charlotte, N.C.-based unit of NBC News managed under a cooperative agreement with NBC affiliates.

The branch produces hundreds of news stories each day to NBC's local stations, cable channels, foreign broadcasters and other news organizations. There also could be consolidation of news bureaus nationwide. NBC has been in belt-tightening mode for at least a year, cutting costs as is the fiscal style of GE under its famed Sigma Six strategy (HR 8/16/05).The cuts might be the steepest that NBC has experienced since 2001, when the company shed about 560 jobs, or 10% of its work force. NBC completed its merger with Universal Studios in 2004.

Reference: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003285113

_Assignment # 2_

2008-06-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

1.)Online Marketing Manager

The Online Marketing Manager will support the overall online and direct marketing initiatives including project management, online development, website modification, maintenance and email marketing. This position interacts directly with internal marketing and technology groups, as well as external vendors. The role will address the interest of both domestic and international online marketing needs.

Reference: https://mh.taleo.net/careersection/3/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=309371&src=JB-11420

2.) Assistant Manager Online Retail Travel Store

This job provides assistance in online marketing campaigns, website maintenance, a full training provided and providing general support to the eCommerce manager.People in this job should have a basic knowledge and use of the internet, basic IT skills, an interest in travel clothing & equipment,although full training in equipment will be provided and a very good telephone manner.

Reference: http://www.gumtree.com/london/49/25173349.html

3.) Smart Thinking - E-structors - Online Tutors

This job has the responsibilty of tutoring students of varying abilities and ages; however, responsibilities may include assisting in the training and mentoring of new tutors. Candidates can work from any place where they have computer and Internet access.

Reference: http://www.smarthinking.com/static/e-structors/positions/

4.) Online Data Entry Job

This job is easy, quick and profitable. People can make money instantly and quickly.And also people can earn a good living online with a guaranteed income simply doing online work part time for us. Just work from anywhere in the world from the comfort of your own home.

Reference: http://www.home-profits.biz/
5.) Online Website Builder

Designer online flash website builder enables you to build a multimedia rich flash website within minutes.You require zero knowledge of programming and HTML coding to build your flash website.This is a great job.It helps you a lot.

Reference:http://www.designer360.com/

If you were to ask me what I most like among this five (5) online jobs,actually i like all of them because you can earn money.Everyone wants to have an income.But,I rather be a website builder....hehe!But of course, I know that it is a hard job...Bahala na si GOD sa akin...hehe!

_Assignment # 1_

2008-06-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

Job Description:
IT Programmer Analyst, Senior

Functions:
The Programmer Analyst provides service to the academic community by providing complex programming, design and analysis work, systems development, and complex report writing. The Programmer Analyst also assists with PC desktop systems administration services.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
Writing IT programming specifications; performing systems design and analysis; writing program documentation in accordance with published standards.
Experience working with Windows and UNIX operating systems
Experience designing software programs and performing data analysis
Experience writing program documentation in accordance with published standards
Familiarity with database concepts

Reference: href="http://www.educause.edu/Professional%20Development/
JobOpportunities/ITProgrammerAnalystSeniorProgr/34769?
time=1213594777"

_-=My Introw.=-_

2008-06-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

I'm Ilyn Mapalo!18 years old...third year student!I'm from evening student before....hehe
my expectation in this subject is hard and challenging....
i expect that sir gamboa will help us to develop our skills to become an IT specialist someday!!
hope that he will be kind and considerate to us....
to all my classmates,God Bless and Good Luck!!

┼♥Green♥┼

__MIS 2: Assignment # 9__

__MIS 2: Assignment # 8___

__MIS 2: Assignment # 7___

__MIS 2: Assignment # 6__

__MIS 2: Assignment # 5__

__MIS 2: Assignment # 4__

__MIS 2: Assignment # 3__

___MIS 2:Assignment # 2___

___MIS 2: Assignment 1___

___MIS 2: Introduction___

__Journal 5_____

__Journal 4_____

__Journal 3_____

__Journal 2_____

___Assignment 9___

___Assignment 8___

___Assignment 7___

___Assignment 6___

___Assignment # 5___

__First Company Visit:For Major Paper __

___Lapanday Foods Corporation___

___GH OFFICE DEPOT___

___COMMDAP___

___Assignment 4___

___Assignment 2___

___Assignment 1___

___Assignment 3___

___COMMDAP Experience___

___Tough day___

___Definitions of MIS___

___12 Effective Leadership Roles___

___Mintzberg: The Managerial Roles___

___Introduction for MIS1___

___Assignment # 9___

___Assignment # 8___

___Third Journal___

___Second Journal___

___First Journal___

___Assignment # 7___

___Something to Ponder___

___We Grow in Love___

___Schools for Robots___

___Your Own Story___

___Assignment # 6___

___Assignment # 5___

___Assignment # 4___

___Assignment # 3___

___Assignment # 2___

___Assignment # 1___

_-=My Introw.=-_

MIS 2: Assignment # 9

MIS 2: Assignment # 8_

MIS 2: Assignment # 7_

MIS 2: Assignment # 6

MIS 2: Assignment # 5

MIS 2: Assignment # 4

MIS 2: Assignment # 3

_MIS 2:Assignment # 2_

_MIS 2: Assignment 1_

_MIS 2: Introduction_

Journal 5___

Journal 4___

Journal 3___

Journal 2___

_Assignment 9_

_Assignment 8_

_Assignment 7_

_Assignment 6_

_Assignment # 5_

First Company Visit:For Major Paper

_Lapanday Foods Corporation_

_GH OFFICE DEPOT_

_COMMDAP_

_Assignment 4_

_Assignment 2_

_Assignment 1_

_Assignment 3_

_COMMDAP Experience_

_Tough day_

_Definitions of MIS_

_12 Effective Leadership Roles_

_Mintzberg: The Managerial Roles_

_Introduction for MIS1_

_Assignment # 9_

_Assignment # 8_

_Third Journal_

_Second Journal_

_First Journal_

_Assignment # 7_

_Something to Ponder_

_We Grow in Love_

_Schools for Robots_

_Your Own Story_

_Assignment # 6_

_Assignment # 5_

_Assignment # 4_

_Assignment # 3_

_Assignment # 2_

_Assignment # 1_