Big Blog in the Sky

club306: eHealth

Hosup posted a link about a large-scale electronic medical records implementation intended to streamline patient information sharing between hospitals in Massachusetts. Broadly speaking, the USAToday article touches on what I intend to in the foreseeable future and perhaps the rest of my life. Replacing paper processes in health care is a good idea for a multitude of reasons, and there is a huge federal initiative to get the job done. But the best technology isn't necessarily the answer. 50%-75% of information systems projects fail--and not because of bad technology, but because of people issues and the way they are managed.

The article I just referenced was written by Nancy Lorenzi, PhD., who I worked for the last two summers and plan to study under in a graduate program at Vanderbilt University. This class's emphasis has been on creating sound technology, which is a must, but it's also been on understanding concepts for use as a manager. If I may be so bold, I want to suggest to my classmates that an information system is only as good as the users in an organization who adopt it. Understanding organizational implications of information systems implementations is absolutely necessary, although it is often overlooked.

I will now get off of my soapbox. Is this an example of bloggerhea?

IBM out of PC's, into Macs?

The news has been rife with coverage of IBM's sale of its PC unit to Chiense computer maker Lenovo, but what next of its business moves? Sure, IBM will dedicate a lot of its resources to its lucrative information services/consulting segment, but this article from the Register speculates that IBM might be looking to tap Apple's hardware prowess. If IBM is getting out of PC sales because it's a low-growth field, then it kind of makes sense for them to try to capitalize on Apple's niche market--those who "switch" from PC's to Macs. Catering to graphic artists and those who want a chic desktop or laptop, Apple goes after a different, less price-conscious demographic. Apple is known for being cool, but I don't know if IBM could emulate Apple's coolness.

Tech jobs to be replaced by new tech? | Tech News on ZDNet

Here's another article from ZDNet discussing trends in information business. According to Gartner, by 2024 data centers will require fewer personnel because technology will be smarter; on the other hand, project management jobs will be in higher demand. This makes sense to me. But from a public policy angle, this only complicates matters for all levels of government. Whenever I'm home and read the local newspaper, there always seems to be articles about vocational education transitioning to the twenty-first century through programs like Cisco certification in low-income high schools. I'm not treating the Gartner report like gospel, but if the trends prove to be true, do current government efforts appear to be for naught? Maybe I just reacted to this the wrong way. Back to project work now.

Making that dolla

A persistent theme in our class discussions is "How can I make money through information business?"  In this interview with Don Valentine, founder of Sequoia Capital--the Silicon Valley VC firm, there a couple ways revealed.  I found the end of the interview to be most interesting--the fact that Mr. Valentine says that progress in information business has been predictable.  No wonder he's such a good venture capitalist.  I guess it's just good business sense, but for people looking to earn a living in an information business-related field, this appears to be very solid advice.  Sure, all of Valentine's observations are in hindsight, but $3 billion worth of success is reason to believe he has good foresight too.  His commentary about industry behemoths and innovation is interesting and in accordance with other literature I've read, too.  If I may be so crass as to suggest that BBAs come in two flavors--those who wish to make money investing, and those who wish to make money running companies, I think that this article appeals to both of those interests, and even shows the crossroads of the two.  Enjoy.

Blogging in the workplace

There has been much talk in the blogosphere recently about employees using blogs and also issues of privacy and anonymity. Today's New York Times features an article about a Delta Airlines flight attendant whose allegedly racy pictures featured on her blog were the subject of her dismissal from the company. From the article I gather that her blog posts are insightful about the airline industry but not defamatory--just that her "glamour" shots of herself in uniform were not taken so well by Delta. It's interesting that she's not protected under common use, as pointed out by the law professor. Read on!

In another article from the summer, it appears that plogs, or project management weblogs, are picking up steam in corporations. Read about it here in CIO magazine. Plogs appear to be a good technique for KM and communicating daily changes to everyone.

Politics for nerds. Your vote matters.

The title of my post is the moniker of http://politics.slashdot.org. Like every other day of the year, there's a poll featured on Slashdot today and it's particular to the goings-on of November 2. Check out the results here. It's interesting to see the politics of a blogging community's members come to light. We'll see how it all pans out.

Let's Go Blue (vs. Red)!

Political jihads and the blogospheret

Political jihads and the blogosphere | Tech News on ZDNet starts off by saying. "Here's a thought: A blogger might be the first to announce the winner of Tuesday's election." He goes on to talk about network TV's agreement to not announce East coast election results to the West coast, but the blogging community has a large chance to interfere with this. This goes along with our ongoing discussion of the effects of the blogosphere. Very interesting, but kind of scary too.

By the way, everyone remember to go vote tomorrow if you haven't already.

Aggregate blogging example

This article from ZDNet shows another example of the aggregate effect of blogging (not 'aggre-gayt' as you might typically think of blogging). The Wall Street Journal is modifying its content distribution practices due to the influence of blogging communities on the whole. WSJ.com now sees an advantage rather than a threat in RSS. Everyone always talks about how they can make money using RSS, and I think the Journal's embrace of RSS could prove to be a good example that content is king. If people really want to experience something online, they'll pay for it--just like so many existing WSJ.com subscriber already do. And RSS is potentially the perfect medium to lure new subscribers.

Attention Firefox Evangelists

According to this link on Slashdot, it appears that a group is trying to buy a one-page ad in the New York Times to showcase Firefox as a replacement for Internet Explorer. As of 12:40 Central Time, the group's site appears to have been "Slashdotted," that is to say it's fallen victim to the "Slashdot effect," which in non-nerd speak means to have encountered a heavy traffic burden and is no longer accepting HTTP requests due to a large number of users directed to the site from Slashdot. Slashdot, a blog run by a few people, bills itself as "news for nerds, stuff that matters." This is another example of the effect of blogging communities. Anyway, the Spread Firefox project sounds cool from the news clip that I read. Greetings from Nashville and good luck studying...

Of Mike and Gmail

I switched to Gmail and it's totally sweet. Unlike any other web-based email services I've used in the past, this feels most like a desktop application. Spam was getting to be a really big problem for me and Google's filter is great. I like the way messages are arranged as conversations, too. Maybe the biggest thing Gmail touts is "search, don't sort" your email. Because you have a gigabyte of space and archive your mail rather than delete it, performing a Google search of your inbox is not only easy but the quickest way to find what you're looking for. I also have complete transparency using my existing Umich address: I changed my forwarding address on directory.umich.edu to my Gmail account and changed my reply address in Gmail to match my school account.

Although I won't switch back to Outlook for email because the spam protection is so good on Gmail, the thing I miss the most is an integrated calendar. If Gmail had a calendar, it would be close to perfect. Knowing Google, their calendar component would probably be innovative and easy to use. I've considered using a web calendar service like that found on my.yahoo.com, but integration with my Gmail inbox is what I'm after. Until that day comes, I will continue to use Outlook for my calendaring needs.