MBA 501 - Presentation

My first assignment was to give a presentation that provided a synopsis and highlighted applicable information that can be used by the members of our class.

Please note, I take no credit for the material, I merely tried to summarize it in PowerPoint form.



Also, you are missing all of my interesting elaboration by viewing only the slides, but I haven't figured out a good way to record myself giving a presentation in class yet. Maybe someday...

MBA 501 - Reading list

After reading over the syllabus in class tonight I was quite pleasantly surprised.

In true Walsh fashion, we were giving a hefty list of books for the course. However, this time Professor Warner took pity on us and did not require us to purchase the main 'classic' textbook (Gareth Jones & Jennifer George's, Contemporary Management) that he will lecture from. Instead he gave us a list of 7 other books that we will use as supplemental material throughout the class.

I purchased all of the books, getting most of them from Amazon to get better prices than the school bookstore, and I am looking forward to reading them.

The three required books:
Peter R. Scholtes, The Leader’s Handbook: A Guide to Inspiring Your People and Managing the Daily Workflow

Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization

The recommended books:
David A. Garvin, Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work

Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert Sutton, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action

Peter M. Senge, et al., The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations

Peter M. Senge, et al., The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies & Tools for Building a Learning Organization

MBA 501 - Management and Organizational Learning

I'm taking a few MBA courses as electives for my MSIS program, wish me luck venturing away from my normal geeky courses.

Professor John Warner, D.M. will be teaching the class.

Here is the course description
MBA 501 - Management and Organizational Learning - 3 credits
This course explores the basic understandings and skills necessary for leading or managing organizations by building capacities for organizational learning. Special emphasis is placed upon the use of scientific, hermeneutical, and systems thinking. Students learn how to develop a “learning organization” approach that facilitates ongoing strategy formation, implementation, evaluation, change management and continuous improvement efforts within an organization. The focus throughout the course is on application, action, and achieving effective execution. Students begin to acquire skills for leading and managing through collective learning activities by applying the course studies to their personal and professional situations. The course also reviews many of the basic functions, roles, methodologies, and skills involved in leading and managing organizations.

Take the BIT 511 Survey

Please take a few moments to participate in our class survey. We are researching the effects that IT has had on people in the last 10 years and what trends people predict for the next 10 years.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pVNhOYnx3b3sNJaCszxRsAw

BIT 511 Week 5 Notes

The class started with Dr. Livermore doing a presentation and Q&A about the Capstone class.

Survey Project
I demonstrated how to use the survey form we put together, thank you Google Docs.

Discussion
Barbara asked us all to discuss our experience on http://www.gamesforchange.org/
One of our classmates failed to take care of the trash in NYC, another failed at life in Haiti. While I was wildly successful at being a 3rd world farmer, Jason found Fat World to be lacking.

Lecture Notes
We discussed Wi-Fi and the importance of standards and how the original Internet community just had to adopt standards because a fight over standards would have killed the Internet.

Wi-Fi has many advantages, but there are still security concerns which cause many to hold off.

Wi-Max has been slow to emerge the US, but the max distance of up to 30 miles has great promise.

GPS has been growing in popularity since navigation devices are so cheap.

Three types of RFID - Passive, Semi-Passive and Active

VoIP - more security conerns

Technological Convergence - think iPhone, a multi-multi-purpose device
Which platform will rule the entertainment center in the home? XBox, Playstation, or the PC?

Barbara demoed her new livescribe pen - pretty cool, but I still prefer to type

IPv6 - has been extremely slow for everyone to adopt

Homework
Prepare a presentation for next week on how current trends in technology will or have changed the way people manage their personal, financial, medical, academic or professional information both individually and on an organizational level.

First Week

Intro:
Walsh College is starting to use some Web 2.0 in the class, we have our own BIT 511 SharePoint group, complete with a Wiki, discussion board, shared document repository and calendar.

Now, if we can only get them to let us EDIT the wiki pages...??? (I know, change is slow)

Class Textbooks:
Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams (2006)
The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr (2008)

Lecture Notes:
What technology trends and issues should we be concerned with in the future of IT?

Data mining, security vs. availability of data, education, privacy, liability, bandwidth, free access...

Web 2.0 - the interactive web, user generated content
Global Electronic Commerce - 24/7 access, the long tail
Mobile Commerce
Web 3.0 - the semantic web
Virtualization
Handheld Devices - more powerful than computers 5 years ago, mobile access
Convergence of functionality - nearly all devices are multifunction now
Blade Servers
Quantum Computing
Agile Development
Open Source
AJAX
Web Mashups
SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)
SaaS (Software as a Service)
VoIP
Storage and Network Convergence
IT Governance - who makes the big decisions?
IT Innovation - is IT a profit center or a commodity?
Intrusion Detection/Intrusion Prevention
Secure Software Development
Privacy
Intellectual Property


Reading for next week:
Wikinomics - chapters 1-3
The Big Switch - chapters 1-4

Homework:
Start research for presentation on week 3 regarding how the 'Net Generation' will change/have changed the social and work environment.


Comments:
My goal is to post my lecture notes each week, but I forgot to be taking notes why we discussed these topics tonight...

Wish me luck for next week.

BIT 511 - Business Information Technology Trends and Issues

I will be starting this class Tuesday night with Professor Barbara L. Ciaramitaro, PhD

BIT 511 - Business Information Technology Trends and Issues - 3 Credit Hours

This course introduces students to the broad and diverse range of information technology. Students will be engaged in research of information technology solutions that enable business processes for competitive advantage. The basics of research, reporting that research, and presenting solutions to a diverse audience are stressed.

BIT 526

We had the final lecture, quiz and exam last Thursday.

I have almost talked myself into taking the Network+ cert, but I am not sure if it will be useful to me or not.

Anyway, grades posted today and my A brought my GPA up to 3.925

I've already registered for the Winter semester, I am enjoying only taking one class at a time.

BIT 526 Lab

We have been working with a virtual lab environment to do some basic networking labs.

Our first assignment was to take the 3 virtual machines we were provided and install Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Ubuntu on them.

After installing the OSs we had to turn our Server 2003 into a Domain Controller and join the XP machine to the domain. Then we set up a file share on our Ubuntu machine using Samba, that was a fun experience in Linux command line for me...

Also, we installed IIS and are hosting our own website on the Server 2003 machine.

I still need to finish the Wireshark exercises, that should be interesting.

BIT 526 - Enterprise Network Architectures

I start this course tonight with Professor Eric Hughes

BIT 526 - Enterprise Network Architectures - 3 Credit Hours

This course covers a wide range of topics from local area to wide area networks, protocols, topologies, transmission media, and security. Students will examine the most significant aspects of networking and will examine some relevant topics in-depth. Coverage includes standards, logical and physical architectures, operating systems (i.e., Novell, MicrosoftWindows, and Linux), TCP/IP protocol suite, and troubleshooting and maintenance processes.

E-Commerce on the Unsafe Network

My second paper was a report on the DNS flaw and how it affects e-commerce

Security Research

For our third research assignment I chose to research various e-commerce security issues.

I started off with talking about safe internet browsing, research and downloading.

Using a combination of the free Virtual Machine player - http://www.vmware.com/products/player/ - and a prepackaged Ubuntu with Firefox VM -http://jars.de/linux/ubuntu-710-vmware-image-download-english - you can surf without worries.

I then went on to talk a bit more in depth on the recent DNS flaw, thanks to http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/iguide-kaminsky-dns-vuln.html for the easy to follow guide.

You can use Dan Kaminsky's self test on his blog - http://www.doxpara.com/ - to see if you are still vulnerable.

I wrapped up the presentation with a brief discussion of the difficulties of applying security to something that was never designed with security in mind, the Internet.

The web 2.0 era has an enormous challenge of combining the new web technologies securely on an unsecure 'hostile' [inter]network.

Advertising and Marketing

Our second research assignment was on how e-commerce technology has changed the way businesses engage customers and promote their products and services.

I started with a brief show and tell of Amazon's suggested products. I buy almost all of my textbooks from Amazon, so they have a quite an interesting mix of technical books that their data analytics recommend for me. Then thanks to Annie Chun's Noodle Bowls that we buy from Amazon, other prepackaged Asian noodle dishes...

Next I admitted that I enjoy shopping at Express and I showed off my impressive collection of email offers. Surprisingly, after two weeks of not shopping there, I get a $20 off coupon, then a week later, a $30 off coupon. It is almost as if they are trying to get me to come back...

Thank you data analytics!

Changes in Communication

Our first assignment for BIT 541 - Electronic Commerce, was to give a 10 minute presentation on how technology has changed communication.

One obvious change can be seen in the social networking boom. Don't forget, social networking/media is not for consumers only. Many business are starting to tap into the 'groundswell'.

For my presentation, I focused more on how I have used social technology to promote myself.

A simple Google search for "Eric Charnesky" reveals a lot about me.

Thanks to LinkedIn, I have an online resume and a professional contact network.

Since you are reading this, I am hoping that finding my blog was no big surprise.

Thanks to the Walled Lake Consolidated School District, Oakland Community College, and Walsh College, my academic success that I tout on LinkedIn is easily verified via Google.

Thanks to my unique name, I am the only Eric Charnesky on Google! While I can't control all of the results Google has for me, I did intentionally put myself out there via Blogger and LinkedIn.

If I meet with someone, all I have to do is give out a business card with my name and blog address on it and anyone curious enough to find out more about me is free to Google away.

I wrapped up my self promotion with a mention of www.oursignal.com - a great way to keep up with the 'popular' websites of the day.

Overall, I might not have hit the topic mark dead on, but I think it was a good presentation.

BIT 551 - Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence

I start this course tonight with Professor Ron Calvaneso

BIT 551 Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence - 3 Credit Hours

This course introduces students to best practices for designing warehousing data structures and databases. Topics include advanced modeling concepts, including ragged and unbalanced hierarchies; conformed dimensions; degenerate dimensions; dimensions with multiple hierarchies; and surrogate and synthetic keys. ETL concepts, transformation goals of integration, cleansing, and granularity change are introduced. Students will perform data analysis, develop reports, and use query tools for data-mining to assist in effective business decision-making.

BIT 541 - Electronic Commerce

I am starting this course tonight with Professor Barbara Ciaramitaro, PhD

BIT 541 - Electronic Commerce - 3 Credit Hours

This course explores the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web for the facilitation of business activities. Topics include the many facets of conducting business on the Web, the feasibility of implementing a business operation on the Web, and identification of associated risks. Students will design and build a complete Web-based business solution.

BIT 536 - 'insert interesting project name here' Part 2

The cumulative final project combines everything we learned about database systems and Oracle and turns it into one nice little project.

After submitting our design, Professor Calvaneso gave each group his data model as the base of the next part of the project.

The second part of the project involved writing SQL*Plus scripts to create the appropriate tables, fill the tables with sample data, and run sample reports (queries).

My partner, Jason G, and I worked together to create 3 scripts per the project requirements.

The first script, DDL.SQL creates the tables and constraints and spools the results to a .lst file.

The second script, POP.SQL enters sample data (yes we did cheat and use sysdate to save the time of formatting numerous sample dates) and spools the results to a .lst file.

The third script, RPT.SQL runs the reports (queries) and spools the results to a .lst file.

BIT 536 - 'insert interesting project name here' Part 1

The first part of the project involved creating a data model for a fictitious grocery store based on 'interviews' with various managers.

My partner Jason and I created this ERD in Visio and a Data Dictionary in Excel to go along with it.

BIT 536 - Database Systems

I started my first MSIS class tonight! Professor Ron Calvaneso is teaching the course.

Course Description: BIT 536 - Database Systems - 3 Credit Hours
This course covers the essential database concepts, technology, and techniques required for business database development. Concepts, tools, and technologies associated with the design,
implementation, and management of databases are presented. Topics include data models (with emphasis on E/R model and relational model), normalization, database design and implementation, database query language, transaction management, and distributed databases.

Bachelor of Science in Business Information Technology

I finished BIT 342 and BIT 472 this week and completed my Bachelor's degree program!

I started at OCC back in the summer of 2005, so 3 years of taking classes from start to finish.

I am graduating cum laude and plan to start my Master of Science in Information Systems at Walsh in the Spring semester. Hopefully it will not take 3 years for this degree... =)