Author : Dig Deeper
LINK
Women in information technology face power and confidence issues
One of the biggest concerns the panelists and session attendees raised was the overall struggle to be taken seriously in the IT workplace. That entails toning down the appearance of “being a woman” in hopes of being noticed for smarts and not looks, putting on a “power” face in order to be taken seriously, going an extra mile to fight for a job position when going up against a man, or demanding sufficient maternity leave time.
In an intriguing spin, one session attendee actually felt that being around all men could be more comforting at times. If there are only two women in the IT shop, there can be competition between them to be the woman, which can be more uncomfortable, she said.
Overcoming issues regarding women and information technology
Despite sharing stories of hardships in the workplace, the main goal in the room was not to dwell on the struggles, but find out how to eliminate them, make the IT shop fairer and diversify the workplace.
Several ideas were thrown around, including paying more attention to how a company is portrayed to potential applicants. Rather than having photos of all men on a company website, it is important to include photos of women as well, for example. This small yet impactful sign of diversity shows that this company welcomes a diverse group of people, not cookie-cutter male applicants.
But going deeper, it's also important to create a work environment that instills fair treatment of all people. One way to do that is by structuring meetings so that men don’t dominate the discussion. Another strategy is to have women-specific training or internship opportunities that offer mentorship and a safe space for idea development.
Women in information technology… speak up! And encourage others to do the same
As much as men and the structure of a company need to conform for women to be welcomed in the IT world, women -- and others not directly involved in potential sexism or -- need to speak up and adjust as well. It’s not about women playing the victims and everyone else changing to meet their needs; women must become thicker skinned and muster up their own confidence to achieve what they want in the workplace as well, some attendees said.
The panel discussed how women need to be firm in asking for raises or promotions, especially if they feel as though they are being deprived due to gender. Understanding the culture and ideas of working in the IT field is also important -- and women can't afford to take all joking personally if such joking is the culture of the shop, some attendees said.
The session came to a close with the overall understanding that while there are concrete issues to be addressed, perhaps the biggest issue is the idea that not many people are aware of them. The fact that the majority of the attendees were women showed that either men don’t think there’s an issue, or they felt that the session was solely for women. Either way, sessions like this one at LISA are one of the first steps to making these issues more widely known. This session and those like it have the ability to educate both men and women on what they can do to make the IT industry as fair and welcoming as possible for all people.
Showing posts with label MGT 300 - international it. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MGT 300 - international it. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
What is Information Technology
Author : unknown
In the 1960s and 1970s, the term information technology (IT) was a little known phrase that was used by those who worked in places like banks and hospitals to describe the processes they used to store information. With the paradigm shift to computing technology and "paperless" workplaces, information technology has come to be a household phrase. It defines an industry that uses computers, networking, software programming, and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit, and protect information.
In the early days of computer development, there was no such thing as a college degree in IT. Software development and computer programming were best left to the computer scientists and mathematical engineers, due to their complicated nature. As time passed and technology advanced, such as with the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s and its everyday use in the home and the workplace, the world moved into the information age.
By the early 21st century, nearly every child in the Western world, and many in other parts of the world, knew how to use a personal computer. Businesses' information technology departments have gone from using storage tapes created by a single computer operator to interconnected networks of employee workstations that store information in a server farm, often somewhere away from the main business site. Communication has advanced, from physical postal mail, to telephone fax transmissions, to nearly instantaneous digital communication through electronic mail (email).
LINK
In the 1960s and 1970s, the term information technology (IT) was a little known phrase that was used by those who worked in places like banks and hospitals to describe the processes they used to store information. With the paradigm shift to computing technology and "paperless" workplaces, information technology has come to be a household phrase. It defines an industry that uses computers, networking, software programming, and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit, and protect information.
In the early days of computer development, there was no such thing as a college degree in IT. Software development and computer programming were best left to the computer scientists and mathematical engineers, due to their complicated nature. As time passed and technology advanced, such as with the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s and its everyday use in the home and the workplace, the world moved into the information age.
By the early 21st century, nearly every child in the Western world, and many in other parts of the world, knew how to use a personal computer. Businesses' information technology departments have gone from using storage tapes created by a single computer operator to interconnected networks of employee workstations that store information in a server farm, often somewhere away from the main business site. Communication has advanced, from physical postal mail, to telephone fax transmissions, to nearly instantaneous digital communication through electronic mail (email).
LINK
A week to remmeber
Author: Terry Freedman | Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 11:30AM | Permalink
People visit the ICT in Education website because they have an interest in ICT in education rather than in my private life, which is why I never post anything deeply personal here. However, recent personal events have affected my working life, the most visible evidence of this being the lack of updates here for nearly two weeks. Less publicly, a number of emails have remained unanswered. Here is what has happened during this period.
My sister passed away after a relatively short, but painful, battle with a particular form of soft tissue sarcoma, which is a type of cancer. The type with which my sister was diagnosed is incurable, and she could be offered only palliative care. (If you would like to find out more about soft tissue sarcoma, look at the Sarcoma information website and the cancer research website.)
Shortly afterwards, my mother contracted an infection. This proved to be fatal, and she too passed away a few days later. I am now in the process of easing myself back into work, and hope to be able to resume updating this website on a regular basis between catching up with emails, and working.
LINK
People visit the ICT in Education website because they have an interest in ICT in education rather than in my private life, which is why I never post anything deeply personal here. However, recent personal events have affected my working life, the most visible evidence of this being the lack of updates here for nearly two weeks. Less publicly, a number of emails have remained unanswered. Here is what has happened during this period.
My sister passed away after a relatively short, but painful, battle with a particular form of soft tissue sarcoma, which is a type of cancer. The type with which my sister was diagnosed is incurable, and she could be offered only palliative care. (If you would like to find out more about soft tissue sarcoma, look at the Sarcoma information website and the cancer research website.)
Shortly afterwards, my mother contracted an infection. This proved to be fatal, and she too passed away a few days later. I am now in the process of easing myself back into work, and hope to be able to resume updating this website on a regular basis between catching up with emails, and working.
LINK
Thursday, 8 December 2011
How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making
Published: November 1, 2010
Author: Carmen Nobel
What determines whether decisions happen on the bottom, middle, or top rung of the corporate ladder? New research offers a surprising conclusion: The answer often lies in the technology that a company uses.
Information-based systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, will push decision-making toward the bottom of the corporate ladder. Communication systems, such as e-mail and instant messaging applications, will push the decision-making process toward the top.
And that means developing an IT strategy isn't all about deploying the best technology, says Raffaella Sadun, an assistant professor of strategy at Harvard Business School.
"If a CEO can trust his senior managers, he will be more willing to decentralize decision-making"
"The bottom line is that whoever is in charge of the acquisitions and the IT strategy, they obviously cannot just think about the technology side, they also have to think about the organizational side," she says. "Traditionally, technology is thought of as a tool that enables empowerment, but that's not always the case."
Sadun discusses the issue in "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," a paper she cowrote with Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics.
"Technologies that make the acquisition of information easier at the lower level of the hierarchy are associated with a decentralization of the decision-making process," Sadun says. "On the other hand, we have the communication technologies, which actually do exactly the opposite."
IT's different roles
Companies, however, often fail to consider the disparate roles of their software systems, let alone their effects on organizational behavior. Rather, they lump "information technology" into one amorphous idea—the "IT" department—which encompasses all the technology in the organization.
"Technology tends to be dumped into a single category," Sadun says. "The reality is that IT is a huge, heterogeneous set of technologies."
Similarly, when examining issues such as organization and productivity, industry and academic studies historically tend to treat information and communication technologies as "an aggregate homogeneous capital stock," according to the paper. To that end, Sadun and her fellow researchers set out to show how—and why—managers need to consider the very different organizational effects of communication and information technologies.
"This difference matters not just for firms' organization and productivity, but also in the labor market, as information access and communication technology changes can be expected to affect the wage distribution in opposite directions," their paper states.
The researchers looked at non-production decisions such as capital investment, new hires, and new product plans. Such decisions are either centralized near the top of the corporate ladder or decentralized and delegated to the top of a particular business unit. And the decision makers often depend on ERP software, which facilitates the dissemination of information throughout a large company, enabling detailed coordination among various operating units.
Next, they looked at production decisions, which involve figuring out the tasks necessary to meet the goals and deciding how to pace them. These decisions are generally the bailiwick of either a factory floor worker or a supervisor. For those cases, the researchers studied the role of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software in decision-making.
In both instances, the researchers hypothesized that the information software would lead to decentralized decision-making. Because the software eases access to the information necessary to make important choices, both the ERP and CAD systems would increase the likelihood that plant managers and production workers would make decisions and act on them without having to consult an executive at headquarters.
On the other hand, the team hypothesized that a rise in leased lines and corporate intranets would lead to a rise in centralized decision-making at the top of the corporate ladder.
Enabling micromanagement
In the past, communication often depended on faxes, overnight delivery services, "snail mail," or site visits. Even with phone calls, it was difficult for anyone at headquarters to make educated decisions and communicate them to branch offices. In those cases, it was natural to cede control of daily operations to a local manager.
With today's networking technologies, it's easier for top executives to keep a constant flow of communication with branch offices. However, the network may actually deter innovation. When technology makes it easier to communicate, erstwhile independent workers may find themselves pestering their bosses with e-mailed questions throughout the day. Micromanaging executives find themselves making all the decisions and constantly sending mandates down the corporate ladder.
"Whenever there is a reduction in the cost of transmitting information, it's easier for the person down in the hierarchy to communicate with the CEO," Sadun says. "And the CEO can monitor constantly what this person is doing and just give orders, rather than rely on the judgment of those below."
The research team evaluated data from some 1,000 manufacturing firms in eight countries, including detailed technology rollout histories and surveys that gauged the relative decisional autonomy of plant managers and floor workers. (In gauging the factors that determine whether a firm adopts any given technology, the researchers considered geographic variables that might affect the cost of acquiring the technology—the firm's distance from the Walldorf, Germany, headquarters of ERP market leader SAP, for instance, and the fact that telecom industry regulations vary from country to country, which means networking prices vary, too.)
The findings were consistently parallel with the hypotheses: An increase in the penetration of ERP systems led to a substantial increase in plant manager autonomy. A CAD/CAM deployment raised the likelihood of floor worker autonomy. But communication technologies served to lower autonomy, meaning more decisions happened at the corporate level.
"I was reassured and surprised at the same time that these results were holding across countries and industries," Sadun says.
The importance of trust
That said, Sadun notes that technology is hardly the only factor that determines whether a firm allows decision-making both up and down the corporate ladder. Another major factor lies in cultural differences across and within countries. In a separate study, Sadun found that otherwise similar companies showed huge differences in decision-making tactics, according to their geographical location. In the paper "The Organization of Firms across Countries," coauthored with Bloom and Van Reenen, she documents that firms located in areas with high levels of trust tend to be systematically more decentralized than those in areas with low levels of trust.
Sweden and Portugal, for example, seem to be on opposite ends of the trust spectrum. "There's huge cross country heterogeneity in the way even apparently similar firms decide how to allocate decision rights within the firm," Sadun says. "Take Swedish manufacturing companies, for example. You see that they are completely decentralized, and the middle manager is basically a mini-CEO with loads of decision-making power. And then you take a firm that produces exactly the same good, but instead of in Sweden, it's in Portugal. And there, the middle manager doesn't decide anything and is completely dependent on the authority of the CEO.
"In our research," she continues, "we argue that different levels of trust are a key determinant of these differences. If a CEO can trust his senior managers, he will be more willing to decentralize decision-making. For example, there might be a lower concern about the fact that managers will use their power to pursue their personal interests instead of those of the firm."
link
Author: Carmen Nobel
What determines whether decisions happen on the bottom, middle, or top rung of the corporate ladder? New research offers a surprising conclusion: The answer often lies in the technology that a company uses.
Information-based systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, will push decision-making toward the bottom of the corporate ladder. Communication systems, such as e-mail and instant messaging applications, will push the decision-making process toward the top.
And that means developing an IT strategy isn't all about deploying the best technology, says Raffaella Sadun, an assistant professor of strategy at Harvard Business School.
"If a CEO can trust his senior managers, he will be more willing to decentralize decision-making"
"The bottom line is that whoever is in charge of the acquisitions and the IT strategy, they obviously cannot just think about the technology side, they also have to think about the organizational side," she says. "Traditionally, technology is thought of as a tool that enables empowerment, but that's not always the case."
Sadun discusses the issue in "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," a paper she cowrote with Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics.
"Technologies that make the acquisition of information easier at the lower level of the hierarchy are associated with a decentralization of the decision-making process," Sadun says. "On the other hand, we have the communication technologies, which actually do exactly the opposite."
IT's different roles
Companies, however, often fail to consider the disparate roles of their software systems, let alone their effects on organizational behavior. Rather, they lump "information technology" into one amorphous idea—the "IT" department—which encompasses all the technology in the organization.
"Technology tends to be dumped into a single category," Sadun says. "The reality is that IT is a huge, heterogeneous set of technologies."
Similarly, when examining issues such as organization and productivity, industry and academic studies historically tend to treat information and communication technologies as "an aggregate homogeneous capital stock," according to the paper. To that end, Sadun and her fellow researchers set out to show how—and why—managers need to consider the very different organizational effects of communication and information technologies.
"This difference matters not just for firms' organization and productivity, but also in the labor market, as information access and communication technology changes can be expected to affect the wage distribution in opposite directions," their paper states.
The researchers looked at non-production decisions such as capital investment, new hires, and new product plans. Such decisions are either centralized near the top of the corporate ladder or decentralized and delegated to the top of a particular business unit. And the decision makers often depend on ERP software, which facilitates the dissemination of information throughout a large company, enabling detailed coordination among various operating units.
Next, they looked at production decisions, which involve figuring out the tasks necessary to meet the goals and deciding how to pace them. These decisions are generally the bailiwick of either a factory floor worker or a supervisor. For those cases, the researchers studied the role of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software in decision-making.
In both instances, the researchers hypothesized that the information software would lead to decentralized decision-making. Because the software eases access to the information necessary to make important choices, both the ERP and CAD systems would increase the likelihood that plant managers and production workers would make decisions and act on them without having to consult an executive at headquarters.
On the other hand, the team hypothesized that a rise in leased lines and corporate intranets would lead to a rise in centralized decision-making at the top of the corporate ladder.
Enabling micromanagement
In the past, communication often depended on faxes, overnight delivery services, "snail mail," or site visits. Even with phone calls, it was difficult for anyone at headquarters to make educated decisions and communicate them to branch offices. In those cases, it was natural to cede control of daily operations to a local manager.
With today's networking technologies, it's easier for top executives to keep a constant flow of communication with branch offices. However, the network may actually deter innovation. When technology makes it easier to communicate, erstwhile independent workers may find themselves pestering their bosses with e-mailed questions throughout the day. Micromanaging executives find themselves making all the decisions and constantly sending mandates down the corporate ladder.
"Whenever there is a reduction in the cost of transmitting information, it's easier for the person down in the hierarchy to communicate with the CEO," Sadun says. "And the CEO can monitor constantly what this person is doing and just give orders, rather than rely on the judgment of those below."
The research team evaluated data from some 1,000 manufacturing firms in eight countries, including detailed technology rollout histories and surveys that gauged the relative decisional autonomy of plant managers and floor workers. (In gauging the factors that determine whether a firm adopts any given technology, the researchers considered geographic variables that might affect the cost of acquiring the technology—the firm's distance from the Walldorf, Germany, headquarters of ERP market leader SAP, for instance, and the fact that telecom industry regulations vary from country to country, which means networking prices vary, too.)
The findings were consistently parallel with the hypotheses: An increase in the penetration of ERP systems led to a substantial increase in plant manager autonomy. A CAD/CAM deployment raised the likelihood of floor worker autonomy. But communication technologies served to lower autonomy, meaning more decisions happened at the corporate level.
"I was reassured and surprised at the same time that these results were holding across countries and industries," Sadun says.
The importance of trust
That said, Sadun notes that technology is hardly the only factor that determines whether a firm allows decision-making both up and down the corporate ladder. Another major factor lies in cultural differences across and within countries. In a separate study, Sadun found that otherwise similar companies showed huge differences in decision-making tactics, according to their geographical location. In the paper "The Organization of Firms across Countries," coauthored with Bloom and Van Reenen, she documents that firms located in areas with high levels of trust tend to be systematically more decentralized than those in areas with low levels of trust.
Sweden and Portugal, for example, seem to be on opposite ends of the trust spectrum. "There's huge cross country heterogeneity in the way even apparently similar firms decide how to allocate decision rights within the firm," Sadun says. "Take Swedish manufacturing companies, for example. You see that they are completely decentralized, and the middle manager is basically a mini-CEO with loads of decision-making power. And then you take a firm that produces exactly the same good, but instead of in Sweden, it's in Portugal. And there, the middle manager doesn't decide anything and is completely dependent on the authority of the CEO.
"In our research," she continues, "we argue that different levels of trust are a key determinant of these differences. If a CEO can trust his senior managers, he will be more willing to decentralize decision-making. For example, there might be a lower concern about the fact that managers will use their power to pursue their personal interests instead of those of the firm."
link
Hands-on with Articles for iPhone: Wikipedia in your palm
By Jeff Smykil | Published about a year ago
Articles for iPhone is a brand new Wikipedia client for the iPhone and iPod touch from Sophiestication Software, maker of the popular Groceries, and Coversutra for the Mac. The app feels a lot like something Apple would create, but does it offer enough to set itself apart in the already crowded space? We decided to find out.
Upon first launch, Articles is nearly indistinguishable from mobile Safari. If it weren’t for the gray search and tool bars, you might think you accidentally activated the wrong application. The app is simple to use, and anyone who has used mobile Safari should have no issues. Articles allows a user to search any of the different language variants of Wikipedia and switch between languages without opening any preferences. A choice is given between searching article content or article titles. You can also search either of those options with realtime search suggestions—impressive, considering there are more than 3 million articles in the English version of Wikipedia.
The software makes compromises in the way that entries are displayed, but these are largely due to the screen size of the device. In particular, we're talking about the way information is commonly displayed on the right hand side of a Wikipedia article page (typically classifications in scientific articles, or birth and death dates in biographies). In Articles, you can access this by touching the information icon, which generally appears under the first image. This loads a secondary screen with the same information you would find on the main Wikipedia page. All the info is formatted in a manner that is attractive and easy to read. The developer cited the lack of a solution with attractive article layout, including the Wikipedia mobile site, as a major reason as to why they pursued this project.
Scrolling through an article isn’t the smoothest experience, but you won't find any blank checkerboard patterns like the ones that constantly appear in mobile Safari. I'll take some less-than-perfect scrolling if it means the information is already loaded and displayed when I do scroll. Articles seem to load a bit slow over WiFi, which I initially assumed was due to the whole page rendering before display, but I'm told that there should be no real difference between the performance of Articles and that of the mobile Wikipedia site in Safari.
For those of you who like to peruse Wikipedia in bed, there is an orientation lock inside the app. The implementation works as you might expect, but turning it on and off isn’t a simple preference. Instead, Articles borrows a page from the Tweetie 2 "refresh timeline" mechanism. To lock the screen orientation, just pull down on the text until the dialog says you have locked or unlocked the screen.
As mentioned earlier, the toolbar at the bottom of the app is identical to the one in mobile Safari, though it does hold some pleasant surprises. The forward and back arrows do what you would expect, while the add button allows you to bookmark an article inside of Articles or mail the link of the article using the device's built-in mail application. Upon touching the open book icon, Articles reveals that it has its own bookmark organization functionality. Here, users can view their article history and organize bookmarks into folders.
The coolest feature is probably "Nearby," which also lives inside of the bookmark screen. Nearby uses your current location and drops pins on a map all around it. Each of these pins represents a Wikipedia article about that particular location. The Nearby feature makes use of the geonames.net API and, although the pin dropping isn't fast, it is pretty cool. There are plans to add a feature in the future that adds a map link to see where certain article topics are on a map.
Finally, Articles has the same page functionality as Safari. I like to think of pages as mini-tabs like those in mobile Safari—you can open links in new pages, allowing you to dive deep into Wikipedia without losing your original place. This functionality was coded from scratch, because Apple doesn't open this feature to developers.
Articles is well made, well thought-out, and feels native. If Wikipedia is your thing, you could do much, much worse. At $2.99, it may be pricier than some alternatives, but the polish and the clever “Nearby” feature justify the price.
Articles for iPhone is a brand new Wikipedia client for the iPhone and iPod touch from Sophiestication Software, maker of the popular Groceries, and Coversutra for the Mac. The app feels a lot like something Apple would create, but does it offer enough to set itself apart in the already crowded space? We decided to find out.
Upon first launch, Articles is nearly indistinguishable from mobile Safari. If it weren’t for the gray search and tool bars, you might think you accidentally activated the wrong application. The app is simple to use, and anyone who has used mobile Safari should have no issues. Articles allows a user to search any of the different language variants of Wikipedia and switch between languages without opening any preferences. A choice is given between searching article content or article titles. You can also search either of those options with realtime search suggestions—impressive, considering there are more than 3 million articles in the English version of Wikipedia.
The software makes compromises in the way that entries are displayed, but these are largely due to the screen size of the device. In particular, we're talking about the way information is commonly displayed on the right hand side of a Wikipedia article page (typically classifications in scientific articles, or birth and death dates in biographies). In Articles, you can access this by touching the information icon, which generally appears under the first image. This loads a secondary screen with the same information you would find on the main Wikipedia page. All the info is formatted in a manner that is attractive and easy to read. The developer cited the lack of a solution with attractive article layout, including the Wikipedia mobile site, as a major reason as to why they pursued this project.
Scrolling through an article isn’t the smoothest experience, but you won't find any blank checkerboard patterns like the ones that constantly appear in mobile Safari. I'll take some less-than-perfect scrolling if it means the information is already loaded and displayed when I do scroll. Articles seem to load a bit slow over WiFi, which I initially assumed was due to the whole page rendering before display, but I'm told that there should be no real difference between the performance of Articles and that of the mobile Wikipedia site in Safari.
For those of you who like to peruse Wikipedia in bed, there is an orientation lock inside the app. The implementation works as you might expect, but turning it on and off isn’t a simple preference. Instead, Articles borrows a page from the Tweetie 2 "refresh timeline" mechanism. To lock the screen orientation, just pull down on the text until the dialog says you have locked or unlocked the screen.
As mentioned earlier, the toolbar at the bottom of the app is identical to the one in mobile Safari, though it does hold some pleasant surprises. The forward and back arrows do what you would expect, while the add button allows you to bookmark an article inside of Articles or mail the link of the article using the device's built-in mail application. Upon touching the open book icon, Articles reveals that it has its own bookmark organization functionality. Here, users can view their article history and organize bookmarks into folders.
The coolest feature is probably "Nearby," which also lives inside of the bookmark screen. Nearby uses your current location and drops pins on a map all around it. Each of these pins represents a Wikipedia article about that particular location. The Nearby feature makes use of the geonames.net API and, although the pin dropping isn't fast, it is pretty cool. There are plans to add a feature in the future that adds a map link to see where certain article topics are on a map.
Finally, Articles has the same page functionality as Safari. I like to think of pages as mini-tabs like those in mobile Safari—you can open links in new pages, allowing you to dive deep into Wikipedia without losing your original place. This functionality was coded from scratch, because Apple doesn't open this feature to developers.
Articles is well made, well thought-out, and feels native. If Wikipedia is your thing, you could do much, much worse. At $2.99, it may be pricier than some alternatives, but the polish and the clever “Nearby” feature justify the price.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
