Business Information Systems

…why? Because they carry messages about where your comfort zones are. You don’t need to back down every time fear grips you, but better be aware. So was it today, when we talked in class about your fears and, more likely, concerns related to blogging on the Internet. I’m just going to highlight two from our discussion today:

• afraid your blog might not be interesting? To ascertain if your posts are boring (this is really what it boils down to), ask around among people unlikely to want to hurt you. Check your comments (if any) and other feedback – perhaps you might even submit a poll. And give yourself a few weeks to get into the swing of blogging.
• if privacy or too much available information about you is a concern, better be safe than sorry, I say: anonymize your blog address, don’t mention names, don’t give your private e-mail but instead create a new, neutral one. Be discerning when it comes to posting pictures of yourself or others. And so on. This is unlikely to be very dramatic but in today’s information society our own transparency to the world is one of the issues we need to manage.

We also dealt with a number of practical issues and discussed the important static/dynamic balance of blogs – where static content goes into pages while dynamic content goes into posts – and the issue of linking and referencing images.

Managing the Digital Firm

"A Kindle? How romantic - thank you, Fred!"

We finally began to talk about the digital firm and looked carefully at the Amazon Kindle (via a 2007 interview of Jeff Bezos on the Charlie Rose show) as an example of a breakthrough-product in the consumer markets.

Finally, we discussed the setting for business information systems, including globalisation. check this article from the NY Times for a recent example the limitation of information technology…nature has a way to keep us grounded by catastrophes.

Next week (no class on Tuesday, 27 April – substitute session on Thursday, 29 April at 08:30 a.m.), we will look at different types of information systems in business.

Your assignments

• write your first “proper” blog article and publish it by Sunday 25 April, 23:59 hrs (this is our deadline so that I can check your output on Monday before our class in that week).
• write your first “proper” comment on someone else’s blog post by Thursday, 29 April, 08:30 a.m.
• read the article “Web 2.0″ by Tim O’Reilly in the reader – read the first four chapters only and jot down any technical terms that you cannot understand so that we might discuss them.
• since we didn’t cover it today: take another look at Chris Brogan’s 23 essential elements of blogging!