Seminar 11 Review

We had one of the most interesting seminars for the course till now. It was about Security in this new world run by technology. The professor showed us an interesting presentation on how ATM scams work using very simple and low-tech techniques. I looked for and found the high tech method used for ATM skimming. Below are some photos depicting how the method works:

With newer technology coming to prevent such techniques, the high tech thieves of today are devising new methods to commit these crimes. The only way I think we can ensure security is by keeping ourselves informed or these ways and how to prevent them.

This seminar was different in another way. We played a game that helped us understand how cyber terrorism is taking advantage of the limited resources available to government and the administrative bodies of organizations and companies and become successful in finding loopholes to attack the systems. It was evident that if it is possible for these organizations and the government, there is a far greater chance for everybody to successfully protect their resources as best as possible.

I am very confident in saying that I have learnt a lot during the course of this subject and what I learn here will certainly help me a lot during my career and studies ahead. I would recommend this course to all who are interested in knowing how the new technologies affect the way we do business. I believe its a unique course with a excellent teaching style Even though it requires a lot of work from the student's side, in the end it gives equally high returns.

Seminar 10 Review

The seminar this week covered Business Planning and Storytelling.

According to me, storytelling is actually something everybody should care about and try to improve. It is very important for a human being to convey his thoughts and views to others as effectively as possible to be successful. The presentation on Storytelling covered how best to tell your 'story'. It is said that the human animal is a narrative animal and I feel it is true.

Story and storytelling are tools like any other - a pencil, a computer. An increasing number of professionals are discovering the power and applicability of story proficiency for business management, knowledge management, organizational development, coaching, sales, and software interface design. In large and small corporations, storytelling is not just for the marketing and legal departments anymore. (Source: MIT Media Lab)

"A big part of a CEO's job is to motivate people to reach certain goals. To do that, he or she must engage their emotions, and the key to their hearts is story."
-- Robert McKee, Harvard Business Review, June 2003

Storytelling can be used not only for communication purposes but also for effective leadership, changing organizational behavior, power and influence, public relations, and sales and marketing.

According to Steve Denning, author of the book "The Leader's Guide to Storytelling", "At a time when corporate survival often entails disruptive change, leadership is about moving and inspiring people often to do things that they are not by habit or by predisposition inclined to do: just giving people a reason simply does not work."

I feel a good storyteller can make people listen and agree to what he/she says gets people to listen and implement the ideas and suggestions.

For more resources on Storytelling visit: National Storytelling Network

BUSINESS PLANNING:

Business Planning is something else we discussed in the seminar. We discussed about the various types of small businesses including Limited Liability Partnerships or LLPs.

Definition of Small Business - A business which is independently owned and operated, with close control over operations and decisions held by the owners. Business equity is not publicly traded and business financing is personally guaranteed by the owners. The business will have less than twenty employees.

The only criteria different from micro business here is that a micro business consist of less than 10 employees.

We discussed about the LLPs which was interesting since for my Business Law module I had done a lot of case based questions regarding liabilities of companies. So it was interesting to touch up on that again and also understand what the reasoning behind forming such a partnership is from both perspectives, legal and the owners'.

I was happy to see some statistics on the success and failure of these small businesses. I was not sure about what percentage of the small businesses survives to actually reach the stage where they are able to generate enough revenue to achieve profit. The presentation also listed some of the factors why the businesses fail. I was surprised to see that the largest percentage of failures was due to incompetence. I had always thought that a business might fail largely due to insufficient funds and capital. This presentation was very informative regarding the state of small business and their lifecycle.

Seminar 9 Review

The seminar this week was dedicated to Scenario Planning. Prof Gilbert started off by telling us how scenario planning was introduced in the corporate sector and was basically derived from the tools and method used in military planning and intelligence.

So what Scenario Planning? "Scenario planning is a model for learning about the future in which a corporate strategy is formed by drawing a small number of scenarios, stories how the future may unfold, and how this may affect an issue that confronts the corporation." It is something which is often used by organizations to make flexible long-term plans.

It is a tool specifically designed to deal with major, uncertain shifts in the firm's environment. It shines where other models might fail. It allows the organization or company to analyze the firm's external environment and how it will affect the opportunities and threats presented to the company in the future.

The model is not about predicting the future. Rather, it attempts to describe what is possible. The result of a scenario analysis is a group of distinct futures, all of which are plausible. The challenge then is how to deal with each of the possible scenarios.

The scenario planning method works by understanding the nature and impact of the most uncertain and important driving forces affecting the future. It is a group process which encourages knowledge exchange and development of mutual deeper understanding of central issues important to the future of your business. The goal is to craft a number of diverging stories by extrapolating uncertain and heavily influencing driving forces. The stories together with the work getting there has the dual purpose of increasing the knowledge of the business environment and widen both the receiver's and participant's perception of possible future events. The method is most widely used as a strategic management tool, but it is also used for enabling group discussion about a common future.

The professor showed us a presentation he had made on the telecommunication industry long time ago. To be honest, I wasn't able to comprehend most of the content of that presentation. But I did observe the generic structure on which the presentation was based on. I realized that using this model it was easier to include the unknown factors of the world market into a single design on the basis of which certain observations could be made easily about the strategy of the company for the future. After researching a bit on the topic I found out a very simple design for the scenario matrix which the professor had used in his presentation.

The matrix design is shown below:

To analyze the interaction between the variables, a matrix of scenarios is developed using the two most important variables and their possible values. Each cell in the matrix then represents a single scenario. For easy reference it is better to give each scenario a descriptive name. If there are more than two critical factors, a multidimensional matrix can be created to handle them but would be difficult to visualize beyond 2 or 3 dimensions. Alternatively, factors can be taken in pairs to generate several two-dimensional matrices. (Source: NetMBA)

We did make a scenario matrix during the seminar for a company that wanted to enter the Singapore market and provide free Wi-Fi Hotspots. It wasn't very clear to me then how exactly to choose the variables but after some extra reading I think I can do a better job next time if such a matrix is required.

The scenario planning process consists of the following steps:

1. Identify people who will contribute a wide range of perspectives

2. Comprehensive interviews/workshop about how participants see big shifts coming in society, economics, politics, technology, etc.

3. Cluster or group these views into connected patterns

4. Group draws a list of priorities (the best ideas)

5. Sketch out rough pictures of the future based on these priorities (stories, rough scenarios)

6. Further work out to detailed impact scenarios (determine in what way each scenario will affect the corporation)

7. Identify early warning signals (things that are indicative for a particular scenario to unfold)

8. Monitor, evaluate and review scenarios

Some don’ts for Scenario Planning:

1. treating scenarios as forecasts

2. constructing scenarios based on too simplistic a difference, such as optimistic and pessimistic

3. failing to make scenario global enough in scope

4. failing to focus scenarios in areas of potential impact on the business

5. treating scenarios as an informational or instructional tool rather than for participative learning / strategy formation

6. not having an adequate process for engaging executive teams in the scenario planning process

7. failing to put enough imaginative stimulus into the scenario design

8. not using an experienced facilitator

Some of the benefits of scenario planning include:

• Managers are forced to break out of their standard world view, exposing blind spots that might otherwise be overlooked in the generally accepted forecast.
• Decision-makers are better able to recognize a scenario in its early stages, should it actually be the one that unfolds.
• Managers are better able to understand the source of disagreements that often occur when they are envisioning different scenarios without realizing it.

Something else I puzzled over during the seminar was the term "Zero-Sum". The professor had used it in his presentation but I didn't remember to ask during the seminar. So I thought of finding some more about it on the internet. This is what Wikipedia had to offer on the term:

"Zero-sum describes a situation in which a participant's gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s). It is so named because when the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero."
So it’s a situation where it is impossible for all the players to win.

Other Sources:

Wikipedia- Scenario Planning

Value Based Management

Proof of Concept Presentation

Here is our group's presentation that we presented last week:



Uploaded on: Slideshare

Seminar 8 Review

I wouldn't have been able to write this review had my interview not been postponed. I am glad I was able to attend this seminar. It was really interesting and I really enjoyed giving the presentation on the proof of concept for our project.

In this seminar we learnt mostly about design issues and how use cases can help us walk-through the problems and dilemmas that might be faced by the user while using the designed software or interface. It was fascinating and surprising to me to find out that design is not just an abstract concept but a structured process of a business model. I had not known of use cases and UML before this seminar.

What is UML? Well, the exact definition says, "The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a standard language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of software systems, as well as for business modeling and other non-software systems."

What is used for these representations are UML diagrams. "Each UML diagram is designed to let developers and customers view a software system from a different perspective and in varying degrees of abstraction."

Before this class, I had never heard of Use Cases. After the class though, I was very interested in knowing more about them as I realized after introduction to the concept, that not only they would help our team design a much better and more interactive interface for the users, but also help me think in a methodical way while designing a system in the future if ever needed.

"A use case is a set of scenarios that describes an interaction between a user and a system. Each use case provides one or more scenarios that convey how the system should interact with the users called actors to achieve a specific business goal or function."

A use case UML Diagram would summarize the aspects of the use case into a structured from that can then be easily analyzed and worked upon to improve the model further. This way, UML diagrams for use cases help a designer or a company judge and improve their interface or strategies which relate to interaction with users. UML is a tool by which it becomes very convenient to include the effects of the abstract human behaviour into the logical approach that needs to be taken when analyzing a business model or strategy.

A Use Case Diagram has the following elements:

Actors: An actor portrays any entity that performs certain roles in a given system. The different roles the actor represents are the actual business roles of users in a given system. An actor in a use case diagram interacts with a use case.

Use case: A use case is a visual representation of a distinct business functionality in a system. To choose a business process as a likely candidate for modeling as a use case, you need to ensure that the business process is discrete in nature. Each of the business functions can be classified as a potential use case.

System boundary: A system boundary defines the scope of what a system will be. A system cannot have infinite functionality. So, it follows that use cases also need to have definitive limits defined. A system boundary of a use case diagram defines the limits of the system.

I am confident that after using use cases for our project, we will be able to remove any gaps that may be preventing our interface/ model to fully appeal to the targeted customers or users.

Sources:

Wikipedia

CSIS 4650 Object Oriented Analysis and Design Team Website

Developer.com

Seminar 7 Review

We had a short but interesting seminar this week. We discussed podcasting and how it affects the businesses today. Who can utilize this new technology or platform to improve their standing in the market.

I was eagerly waiting for this seminar since I didn't know much about Podcasting. A 'podcast' is basically a media file that can be distributed over the Internet and can be played on mobile devices and computers. The biggest advantage of podcasts is it's portability and the possibility of interaction between the podcaster and the viewers.

The professor explained how the podcast is being used by numerous well know firms and companies both as a means of internal and external information distribution. The feature which all these firms find advantageous to the situation existing within is that podcasts provide the means for this information to be viewed at the recipient's convenience and can be accessed and utilized multiple times unlike a presentation given in person or the content of a meeting.
Another problem with the conventional presentation and meetings is the problem of coordination with all the employees or the people who are meant to attend them. With podcast, a simple link would be all that needs to be sent and the employee can view the content at his convenience. Through feedback, they would also be able to analyze and discuss the contents of the podcast with others hence utilizing the wisdom of a collective intelligence.

In many countries around the world, the working population spends a considerable amount of time in transport. According to the Land Transport Authority of Singapore, about 5 million trips are made on public transport everyday! A significant number of this would be the working population. So it is clear why a portable and mobile medium of information like podcasts would be preferred. This shows how big a market and scope podcasting has to expand to and if integrated by a telecommunication company, will give it a big boost in the market. Podcasts would make a profitable addition for any business model be it financially like for companies like Starhub or SingTel, or improving the efficiency of information distribution by firms and companies in general to their dealers, suppliers or customers. For example, IBM has a podcast on "The New Intellectual Marketplace" featuring Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM vice president of technology strategy and innovation.
Even U.S. Senator Barack Obama has a podcast reporting his views! Here is the link to his podcast: U.S. Senator Barack Obama Podcast. This seems a very novel way to get himself heard by a lot more people around the world than he could have through news channels or by speeches. I would have never heard his whole speech even if I wanted to through by any other means.

Another advantage of podcasts is that almost anybody can make a podcast without any significant expenditure for equipment or software which may be required. The software is available for free while the hardware (a simple microphone) is available for a very nominal price. Of course there is high-end equipment available too for those would are ready to spend a around S$ 1000 for the system.

We also talked about how smart tagging can help drive traffic to podcasts you produce and share on the Internet. I had already read about tagging since it was related to the web spider program used by search engines to list web pages. There are many software on the web available that allow users to edit these tags. One such software is iTunes.

The professor also pointed out how programs like Skype be used to conduct interviews of experts on particular topics with ease and can be posted on the Internet for the interested to access and hear the views.

I realize now how podcasting has enabled us to distribute information better and utilize the collective intelligence of people from all over the world by providing a common platform to share views with each other.

Elevator Pitch

After some slight modifications, the Elevator Pitch by Wizards of the Web (our group) is up on YouTube! Check it out!

Seminar 6 Review

We had an interesting seminar this week. We got to do a fast case analysis on "Wireless Infrastructure for a Regional Food Safety Initiative in Southeast Asia". Basically, it was a model to help the Agriculture Ministry keep track of the cattle used for the meat products in Singapore in wake of all the diseases that are cause loss throughout the world. For the assignment, we were supposed to present screen designs for particular scenarios that a ministry inspector could encounter.
Before we started on the case analysis, the professor explained why this particular kind of assignment was important to master. It seems it was what many companies test when one applies for a job with them. The professor also explained to us something called the "In-box" exercise. I searched for some explanation and came up with this. It explains how the HR managers or the trainers design an In-box exercise.
The professor gave us a taste of whats that like while we were doing the assignment. I felt that the time we had for the assignment wasn't utilized properly by our group. I guess thats what an In-box exercise is all about, time management.

We also talked about the different approaches one can take for a case analysis. The professor pointed out that it was important to recognize which approach, for example, Value Chain or Process Flow Analysis, Value Systems Analysis, Financial Analysis, is required for the case. He also walked us through what a DHL value chain looks like.
Let me give the example of OCBC Bank and their value chain. The value of their service in Singapore is the easy accessibility to one's account and money. What they need to know to provide this value to its customers are the most frequented places and where these access points (ATM machines) can be placed so as to provide the accessibility at these places. Some such places can include the malls, MRT stations and bus terminals, etc. Another thing which is very important is for them to provide good customer support services.
If we look at the primary activities of the value chain analysis for OCBC, we will see that the inbound logistics consist of getting new accounts made and accepting and handling the cash that comes in and entering the information in the bank servers. The operations that the bank would need to do is to calculate interest for the money it holds and at the same time use that money to make investments and earn profits. The outbound logistics for OCBC will mainly consist of providing customers with access like I mentioned above. Along with all this. there would need to be some marketing involved to attract new customers along with the support services for existing customers.

I am making some improvements in the elevator pitch we made for a previous seminar. I will post the link as soon as I have uploaded the video.

Also, I found this interesting news on one of the websites:"Barack Obama Hops on the Web 2.0 Bandwagon". It just goes to show how significant a role the new Web 2.0 platform is playing in the society today.

Seminar 5 Review

I would like start this post by thanking Professor Gilbert for not giving us the case analysis as an assignment for the next class. I was worried how I would do the assignment with a quiz added to my already ample workload for this week. Also I am happy because our elevator pitch presentation went well in the seminar. It definitely took me more than 6 hours to make the presentation but that was because I wanted to do a good job with it and also found it interesting as I had never done such a thing before with any presentation for any other module. The biggest challenge with the video was to synchronize the narration with the slides. I liked the suggestions Professor gave on how I could improve our presentation. Also, I got a chance to judge the presentation made by other groups.

The topic in discussion for this week's seminar was "Governing the Freedom Economy:Do we need new rules?" A very interesting topic. We can discuss for weeks on end and I can keep giving you reasons why we need new rules in relation to the changing technology in the world today. I personally feel that we need people to monitor the capabilities of the new technologies that enter the market and make rules or standards to govern them.

During the seminar, we discussed how the Singapore government has adopted the new system available to charge the vehicle owners/drivers for the use of the ways and roads in the ventral business district. Using the system called Electronic Road Pricing; the motorists are charged the required amount that needs to be paid from their CashCards by the ERP gantries. Click on the link for more information about the system. The system uses the "pay-as-you-use" principle. The important thing that was pointed out by the Professor was that a similar yet a little inconvenient system already existed before this system was introduced. Here I realized how the existing behaviour of the Singaporeans was used to enhance and improve the system using the new technology that had been developed. The professor pointed out that it would have been very difficult to introduce a totally different and new system as the people would not be "used to it" and hence might not have been so easily accepted. I found it interesting to see how the government uses the norms we all follow in society to make or improve laws to make them more acceptable to the people.

Lets take some examples how some technologies forced a change in laws all over the world.

• When the first mobile phones entered the market, I am sure there was no law banning their use while driving. But as the dangers of such a practice were realized, laws were quickly implemented to prevent this practice.

• Same is the case with laws for the use of internet. As hackers and piracy became more prevalent, it was felt necessary to control and moderate the internet by the governments which then placed laws into place to combat these threats.

• Currently the copyright laws owned by television and movie production companies are being violated by many users on the popular websites like YouTube. These users record and then post episodes that are shown on the television of popular series. Sometimes whole movies can be found on such websites which can be easily seen by anybody by streaming it from the internet. A lot of companies are trying to force YouTube to go against or modify its privacy agreement thereby enabling itself to give out information on these users who violate the laws so they can be punished by the companies. I am sure before such violations were even possible, the copyright laws didn't extend to such limits. This was mainly because the enabling technology that now makes this possible didn't exist at that time.

These are just a few examples that point out why it's so necessary to monitor and moderate the use of the new enabling technologies that are constantly being introduced in the market.

That reminds me of this news piece I read today...

Apparently, "Nokia will be teaming up with YouTube to allow users to view YouTube content on Nokia handsets." I would like if that happened, now that I own a Nokia handset!

Source: Gizmodo (Click on the link for the full article)

Keep reading my blog. Thanks.

Seminar 4 Review

For this seminar, we had a new venue, a lab with faster and better computers! Of course, that was of no significance as we didn't have to use them.

Anyway, the seminar started off with the presentations all the groups had made on a new information system for the Jurong Bird Park (JBP). The assignment was to come up with an efficient system to help non-English speakers fully experience the sights of JBP. We came up with a three-phase system which comprised of using the IVRS system, SMPP protocol and A2DP Bluetooth profile to provide the customers with information they need in their language of preference. Other groups also came up with some good ideas. Later after all the presentations, the professor held a discussion with the class. He walked us through the life cycle of the system. During the discussion I found out how many loopholes existed in every concept presented earlier. I also realized that this was the prefect way to actually develop an efficient and effective concept of a system. Also to note was the fact that none of the presentation really looked at the behavioural side of the system. For example, most of us who talked about Bluetooth never realized (or forgot) that many of the targeted customers might have Bluetooth but may not know how to operate it or switch it on and accept the files. I will keep that in mind for my future assignments.

Another important that we discussed was the concept of "Paid Listings" or alternatively known as "Paid Inclusion".

"Paid inclusion is a search engine marketing product where the search engine company charges fees related to inclusion of websites in their search index. Paid inclusion products are provided by most search engine companies, the most notable exception being Google."

Source: Wikipedia

Hold on! Except Google? That’s right. Google went their own way when it came to adopting this concept. They came up with "Google Ads". What happens with Paid Inclusion is that the website which pays to get listed is added to the results one gets when a search is done. Google Ads, on the other hand are these same websites but they are listed separately from the actual results thereby leaving the order of results unaffected because of these listings. Is there any doubt why Google is said to be the best!

This brought us to the different methods employed by mainly service based companies to obtain the revenue. Besides a fixed cost or subscription based service like the value added services offered by mobile communication operators, there is an alternative in the form of 'pay-per use'. Although this seems a cheaper option for users, as professor pointed out, it also brings uncertainty to the users about the cost charged. They will always be uncomfortable in opting for a service which does not have fixed charges. Another type that was mentioned, which I didn't knew even existed, was commission based system. What this meant was that the company would charge the user of the service only if it was successful in delivering what the service promised. For example, as the professor mentioned, for a service which monitors free parking slots in car parks, it would be a fair deal on the part of both the user and the company if the user was only charged when it was able to provide the user with a location with a free slot. It would not charge the user if it could not find any free slots in any of the car parks. This seems like a deal a user would readily accept.

We also back to discuss the financial strategies of Amazon.com. The professor explained how Amazon handled its cashflow. When a book is bought on Amazon, the customer is charged immediately. But even though Amazon buys and ships the book from the publisher or warehouse operator immediately, it only needs to pay every 30 or 60 days. For those 30 to 60 days, Amazon holds this money and invests it in short term investments and earns over it. The professor also pointed out that the Popular Bookstore within the Campus is preferred over Amazon by students because of two reasons. One, the shipping charges of a single book if a student orders it on Amazon is very high. And two, Popular sells what the students require for their courses in the university. So it is very convenient for us to go there and buy the book we are looking for rather than pay the extra shipping charges and search for the right book on the site and get it a few days later. By keeping up with the demand of the students and the teachers in the university, it keeps its customers (i.e. us) loyal and keeps its revenue secure.

Next, we were introduced to something known as Commerce Spaces. It was a diagram illustrating the scope of interaction between a consumer and business and the government. A service or product can change hands in broadly four ways:

1. Business to Consumer (Users buying books from Amazon.com)
   
2. Business to Business (Companies selling primary or secondary goods for the production of finished goods)
   
3. Consumer to Consumer (Items being sold on eBay by users to each other)
   
4. Consumer to Business (Websites like Priceline which enable users to offer a price for travel packages which a company then accepts. So it’s a kind of 'reverse auction')

There is also the possibility of the involvement of government which constantly releases tenders which are then bid on by companies.

Before the seminar came to an end, the professor showed us the various elements that are characteristic of a business model and what each of them signified. I felt the most important out of the list was 'Customer Value' or 'Value Proposition' which highlighted the value the model would add and positions the product or service in the market.
And as Geoffrey Moore writes in his marketing book Crossing the Chasm, "Positioning is the single largest influence on the buying decision."

I liked this session a lot as the professor explained the theory using examples for each concept. I will now remember the theory because of the connections the professor made with some popular companies and services.

Seminar 3 Review

Well, this was the longest seminar I attended for this course till now. For the first half of the seminar, we mainly concentrated upon "The Collective Intelligence or the Crowd Wisdom (or Madness)". We discussed how some thought that the decision made by a crowd or a large number of participants diminishes the quality of the discussion and the decision made while some believed that a group of people in the right circumstances make decisions which are better than what the smartest person from the group could have thought of individually. The professor gave us the example of a U.S. submarine, Scorpion which disappeared in 1968. He told us how the investigative team, using their collective intelligence and expertise, had estimated the location correctly to couple of hundred yards!

We went on to discuss some of the problems faced by a crowd and how the participants perform to them. It was pointed out by the professor that according to a research done in the working of the crowd participation in the greatly popular show "Who wants to be a Millionaire", the audience could answer the question correctly 91% of the time! That is an amazing percentage considering the audience is not a panels of experts that specialized in the fields. The crowd from the TV show is the perfect example to show how they tackled cognition problems i.e. problems with definitive solutions.

I will always remember how the crowd tackles coordination problems. The professor gave an excellent example, describing how people "swim" their way through traffic in Bangkok. But neither will I forget the example for problems faced related to cooperation among people to get work done in the public work sector. The auto-rickshaw emitting a huge cloud of smoke on the road reminded me that it was the cooperation of the people together that helped the laws and policies materialize.

I understood what a major factor diversity was in enhancing the collective intelligence of the crowd after I found out about the excellent job the crowd does on the TV show I talked about earlier. It also reminded me of this case one of our core subject lecturer mentioned one
day. He told us about a senior who had gone for his IA (Industrial Attachment) in a big company. Although he was just employed as a intern and not a regular staff, he managed to solve a significant problem that the company was facing using only the basic knowledge he had about the related field. The company, as a result, gave the student an excellent feedback for his work and awarded him for his work after his attachment was over. This example came to my mind when diversity and independence were being discussed in class. It was clear that even though he was not an expert in the field he could solve the problem the in-house experts at the company had overlooked or given up on just by thinking independently. The company by asking him to join as an intern in the company had diversified their employee base and it paid off for them.

I also remembered this news article I had read on a news site even before I had taken up this course. It was about an increase in the prices of Sony Corp. shares after Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks in the world, changing the rating of the company in its listings. These are the listings many of the world largest banks and financial securities companies subscribe to and follow. Fortunately, I found the link to the news article. Click on the link to read the full article (Source: January 8,2007 -CNN.com-) Bless the news archives! I wondered at that time why so many blindly followed its ratings. Everybody can make mistakes even large investment banks! Even they fire their investment bankers now and then. I would say this piece of news clearly represents the cascading effect the professor was talking about in class. The small investors follow the big ones in the surge and end up losing a lot of money.
"Because this is a Goldman upgrade, everyone is paying attention," says Ken Masuda, a senior dealer in equities in a leading Japanese company providing financial services.

We also went on to discuss how this collective wisdom affects the results on Google search. After Professor Gilbert explained to us how the "spider" searches and assigns tags to web pages and we get more relevant results. Here is a chart that explains the process:
Source: HowStuffWorks.com (Click on the link for more info)

One of the slides, shown posed the question, "How is Web 1.0 and 2.0 different?"

To explain this, the professor gave us a simple example. He compared Web 1.0 to a paper encyclopedia that people used to own (maybe still do) which not only became outdated after some time, maybe even by the time one bought it, but only gave a one perspective of the events. On the other hand, sites like Wikipedia use the Web 2.0 concept and helps provide readers with different viewpoints on the same issue thereby presenting a more neutral stand all issues.

During this seminar I also got to revise some of the concept from my marketing module. We discussed how a company can more efficiently and accurately conduct its market research and set an approximate production target and also control pricing using online simulated communities like the widely popular Second Life. I had once stumbled upon this "game" a while back and read up its description but never really thought how companies could have been using the players in this game to solve their problems in the real world!

The professor also mentioned Apple's iPhone and how a service provider can increase its market share by introducing the product in Singapore. Interesting enough, I had just read something related a day before the seminar. One of the Canadian companies, Rogers Wireless is going to provide the iPhone to its users exclusively in the country. (Source: Gizmodo) So will one of our own try something similar, time will tell... or the web anyway!

We had also started to discuss about Mobile Commerce just before the end of the seminar. We briefly discussed ideas which can help make it more convenient for people to buy movie tickets, pay for parking using cellphones and the mobile networks already in place. The assignment for this week is somewhat related to this topic and I hope I can do well in it.

Seminar 2 Review

Now that the 2nd Seminar for MB362 is over, I can gladly say that it was as interesting and informative as the first one.

"The Impact of Fixed Mobile Convergence Technology on Market Entry". This was the case given to the class for the case analysis for this week. It was a case study done by the Professor himself, covering a brief history of the telecommunication industry in Singapore and the market situation that existed when StarHub was about to enter Singapore's market. It was interesting to read what all factors actually influenced StarHub's strategy when it was planning to enter the market. The case focused on the impact of the introduction of FMC (Fixed and Mobile Convergence) services on the market and the companies that did business in the market at that time.

We also covered the technology behind the Internet and the World Wide Web. I already had some idea about the history of the Internet and how it came to be available to the public from another course, but it was the first time I got to know about E-mail and Usenet.

We then moved onto the development and implementation of the hypertext language and to its evolution into HTML, XML and finally xHTML today. It is amazing to see how the idea of Mr. Vannevar Bush about a 'futuristic' device called Memex. He described the device as a mechanical desk linked to an extensive archive of information which will be able to automatically follow references from any given page to the specific page referenced and display it. This was way back in 1945. It is believed that this idea inspired the invention of the hypertext system.

Next we discussed briefly why it was important to improve upon the protocols (TCP/IP) that controlled the data over the internet. The protocol should be able to transfer data more efficiently so as to provide a smooth channel between the web applications and the access technologies like Ethernet LAN (Local Area Network), Wireless, DSL etc. We went on to discuss the IP (Internet Protocol) v4 and v6, its capabilities and advantages over the previous versions.

I had virtually no knowledge about the protocols used in wireless services before this seminar. During the seminar, we got to know a little bit about the 802.11 protocols and the speeds the new protocols will be able to achieve. We also researched online a bit about IEEE and how it sets the standards for these protocols.

We also got to try our hands on coding HTML for a while. I was glad to find out that I still remembered a lot from the time when I had learnt HTML back in school. I am looking forward to do some coding and refresh my memory.

During the later half of the class, we also looked at 3 blogs which featured my blog as well. I hope to keep improving it and at the same time learn more and more about the topics discussed in the subject.

Just to make this post a little more interesting I dug up some interesting information.

Media accreditation for bloggers in US

It seems Bloggers, for the first time, have obtained media accreditation to attend and report on a trial in the US Federal Court. They will be able to transmit the trial proceedings via an internet video feed. It seems this is the first time bloggers have been awarded press accreditation to such a trial.

The Venice Project - Free internet television!

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype, recently unveiled "Joost", a test version of an online television service that will be free to users. Talk about disruptive technology! It is expected to deliver a "near-TV" quality service. I am really curious to know how are they going to advertise this service on cable TV! Some say it will have to compete with video sharing sites like the popular YouTube. If Joost's quality is as good as it claims, I dont think there will be any reason for anybody to visit YouTube.

Fake or the real deal?

Seems the gadget site, Gizmodo.com got a tip about a smartphone by Google! Yes, you read it right. The people at Gizmodo along with many readers are skeptical about the the accuracy about this piece of information. I am not so sure either. But it sure makes you wonder what is going to happen if this phone is launched. I am sure Steve Jobs would be hoping this is a fake.

Here is a picture from the site. The phone is supposedly called "Google Switch"...

Source: Gizmodo

I hope you liked reading this post as much as I liked writing it. Later.

1st Seminar Review

Our 1st Seminar for MB362 started with Professor A. Lee Gilbert giving us a brief overview about the subject and its structure. I had gone through Course Link only half an hour back so I had some idea what the course was going to be about. Before I came to the seminar, looking through the vast amount of links and information along with the instructions and requirements for the subject, made me think it was going to be a tough subject to handle (and score in). Now after attending the 1st seminar, I feel I have found a subject I am genuinely interested in and one I will enjoy studying.

To start, Professor Gilbert informed us about the Wiki we are going to be using as the "text" for the subject. I had seen some other sites having a link to their "Wiki" but never really thought of exploring what it was about. He had mentioned earlier Web 2.0. It seems to me now that Wiki IS Web 2.0 in progress. The basic idea is a more interactivity and a bigger knowledge base than what one person alone could hope to achieve. It would be exciting to work on the course material we are going to use later for our own exams and at the same time update it to match the current trends to make it a better tool of learning.

As we started our discussion on Disruptive Technologies, Professor Gilbert introduced us to Clayton Christensen. At that time, I had no idea who he was or what he had achieved in his field. My curiosity was raised enough that I decided to find out about him a little more. What I found left me in awe. His educational qualification and the numerous awards he has received over the years shone his brilliance. According to his biography, he is a “seasoned entrepreneur”, founder of three successful companies, and has written some of the best business books ever written.

In the discussion, almost everybody agreed that download of online music was one of the most significant disruptive technologies. After some time it was clear that online file sharing/ illegal download of content has made the entertainment industry suffer the most. It was also pointed out that some people had benefited from this new technology, mostly young music bands who had found a cheap way to publicize themselves and even sell their music.
Another technology that was mentioned was VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). There was a discussion how VoIP is going to change the way telecom industry does business and how companies like Singtel and Starhub are changing there strategies to hold onto there market share.

The Professor also discussed Jeff Bezos and his site Amazon.com. He discussed with us his story and how he came to be one of the World's Wealthiest People. It was intriguing to know how he took a huge risk and and finally achieved success after a very disappointing start.
"I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is never trying."
He has nothing to regret now.
Professor Gilbert showed us the annual earnings of Amazon.com. The company after suffering huge losses had started making some phenomenal profits. It seems though that the companies net earnings this year is being predicted to be 20% lesser than last year dropping from $359 million to around $290 million. The point still remains that his innovative idea and his capability to take a risk and belief in his idea has brought him immense success.

We also talked about Apple launching its iphone. I had heard about it but when posed with the question, I wondered what made it so special. After some searching, I found out that it was Apple's first step into the mobile phone market. The iphone offers internet connectivity and network capabilities along with the usual mobile phone functions. It is being claimed by the company that it will run OS X, the operating system which is used in Apple computers and is being marketed as a smart phone but some initial reviews have doubted its usefulness. (Source: Crave, CNet).

Close to the end of the seminar, Professor Gilbert informed us about our assignment for next week, a case analysis on "The Impact of Fixed Mobile Convergence Technology on Market Entry". I am still to read it. It should make for some interesting reading.

More later. Visit the links for some more information.

Welcome!

Welcome all! This is my Electronic and Mobile Commerce Blog.

I sincerely wish you will read through my posts regularly and appreciate my work (Through your comments). I hope to learn a lot through this course about a field I am greatly interested it.

Thanks.