M Go Blue

IT Outsourcing

I can certainly sympathize with the frustration that Hail to the Victor's expresses here regarding multiple copies of documents and the negative implications they have on class projects. The response that bschool bloggin got back from Scott Moore regarding this issue was very interesting, as I had absolutely no idea that Ctools presented an opportunity to share documents in a restricted online group environment. I wish I knew this earlier, as it certainly would have reduced the duplication frustration that is inherent in emailing out multiple versions of documents.

But, I am more interested right now in Blogonaut's recommendation of outsourcing the solution. While in this case I think Ctools' solution takes care of the matter pretty well, and a solution does not really need to be outsourced, there are other instances at this university where IT is definitely outsourced. An example of the university's outsourcing of IT can be found in this Michigan Daily article. The article describes a deal that the University has brokered with a company called Cdigix to outsource the ability to upload audio and video files for use as course materials. A really cool side effect of the University signing this deal is that we as students will soon be able to download all the music we want for only $2.99 a month, and the article discusses this aspect at lengths. But, apparently, this extra ability was not really a factor in the university's decision to outsource their online audio and video capabilities. I think it is very interesting to see the university outsourcing this IT aspect. I wonder if the university's outsourcing IT in general will become a more common occurance in the future.

Blog: Word of the Year

I agree with Mike.  Pretty cool that blog is the word of the year!  Commentators on CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews talk about the impact blogs have all the time.  I just hear about blogging everywhere. I know that it is my word of the year, though I'm also a big fan of their #7 word "peloton."  I had know idea what the heck this word was until this past summer, where I heard it like ten times a day during the Tour de France.

Thanksgiving Blogging and IT

I was talking with my Dad over break about what was going in BIT 320 and told him all about our class blog.  He works for Sun Microsystems, and he told me that they had recently implemented a internal company blog.  Tranquilidad's post here does a good job outlining the benefits of corporate blogging.  He said that he hasn't contributed to it just yet, as he initially didn't see the benefits of the blog.  But, he mentioned that even though he hasn't made a post, it is nice to read what others in the company are thinking.

Besides talking with my dad about corporate blogging, eating turkey, and catching up with class activities, I decided to do a little extracurricular web design.  Not only did I re-designed my club's website, but I implemented a team blog as well.  I set the blog up about a week or so ago, and I worked on the site off and on over break.  The website can be found here.  Notice the blog button on the left-hand side.  I set up a team blog so that all the members of the executive board can participate, though I am the only one on the team as of right now.  I just used blogger.com to do it, as it was free, and it seems like it will work out just fine.  It was ridiculously easy to set up, and I was literally making my first post a minute after I registered.  Though, I must admit, the price of admission for typePad may be worth it, as blogger.com is much more limited.  No trackbacks.  No reference and hit statistics.  No categories for posts.  Minimal page customization.  But, it is free, and I guess that won out this time.

Bottom-up Change

I very much agree with what Krysta said here in regards to blogs being a catalyst for promoting bottom-up change. I am in the same class that she speaks about that involves a very large project analyzing a factory. In fact, we both give our big group presentations tomorrow (good luck Krysta!). Anyway, I wish I had given thought to the possibility of blogs in a company as a means of bottom up change before our project was set in stone. It certainly would have been a unique "thinking outside the box" kind of component to present to the consultants and our professor evaluating our presentation.

By employees on the line blogging about issues, it ensures that the issues are not just brushed aside as they may be if a suggestion or complaint is put in some anonymous box. Comments are there for the whole organization to see, and cannot be ignored. Furthermore, the possibility to build on others comments is very powerful, and could serve a factory such as the one we have been analyzing, very well.

Microsoft launches search engine

Microsoft unveiled a preliminary version of its web search engine two days ago. The beta version of this new search engine can be found here.

Microsoft is trying to compete with market leader Google in the battle for the number one search engine. My first thought is that they don't have a chance. Google is far and away the standard, and it is engrained into so many websites for intra-site searches (like on umich.edu). But, as the article I referenced to points out, Microsoft does have a way of coming from behind and seemingly overtaking an industry, like it did to Netscape in the browser market. They even managed to become a true contender in the videogame console market, which I thought was flat-out impossible as they had no hardware experience whatsoever. So, we shall see how they fare in this search engine competition. It should be interesting.

ER Diagram software

I googled "ER diagrams" earlier today and saw a link to a site on the "Sponsored Links" right-hand panel for a compnay that sells a piece of software that makes professional looking ER diagrams. On a sidenote, I completely ignored these sponsored links until last week's lecture, but I feel like I will definetely pay more attention to them from now on. Anyway, I just downloaded a 30 day free trial version of the sofware, which is called Smart Draw.

After checking it out for only a few minutes, I can already say that it offeres way more than we really would want to make a nice looking diagram for our project, though we can certainly use it in this class. But, I think it would be truly valuable for an IT professional who might make a lot of ER diagrams, as it allows for the easy manipulation of diagram components. Entities and change relationships can simply be moved around and it is all in a standardized format.

By the way, a link to Bud's Blogonaut site also came up on the first page for the same search for "ER diagrams," which I thought was pretty cool.

Microsoft and open standards

I read this article, and while some may say that by Gates openly discussing RSS and blogging means that Microsoft isn't against open standards afterall, I would have to disagree. It seems as if Microsoft, and every other company in the information technology business has to support these new forms of technology to a certain degree or they run the risk of losing a segment of their customer base. Every business must evolve to keep pace. But to make the leap to say that Microsoft is actually for open standards seems a bit to much to ask. Microsoft makes its money off proprietary software sales, primarily. An embrace of open standards would lead to a dramatic decrease in profit from the sales of software, and move their strategetic focus towards making money off the customer service end. This seems like an unlikely move for the software giant to make.

A test post

this is just a test post