The Expanding Universe of Computing

1. The Expanding Universe of Computing Chapter 11 Information Systems Management In Practice 5E McNurlin & Sprague

2. Introduction • Impact and expansion of computers and information technology (Fig. 11-1) • Technologies (toolset) employed by users to create their computer-based environment • Internet • Mobile and Wireless Computing • Rich Media Content

3. The Technology Camel • Levels of comfort with new Technology (see Figure 11-2): • Eager Beavers: The Innovators and Pioneers • Early Adopters: The First Consumers • Early Majority: The First Big wave • Late Majority: The Technology Skeptics • Technically Averse: “Not On My Time You Don’t”

4. Supporting End Users • Yesterday’s Information Centers • Today’s Help Desk • Users have more complex requests • Users have more difficult questions • Answers are more time-consuming • End user support has become the “Help Desk” and its multiple tiers of “assistance”

5. Supporting End Users: Training and Education Needs Users need five types of education and training • Information systems concepts: End users focus on literacy and how things are done by the computers • Quick start: End users need a way of quickly learning how to use a new machine, application, device, or service • Refresher aids: end users need to remember how to perform certain operations

6. Supporting End Users: Training and Education Needs • Explanation of assumptions: End users who create forecasts and projections using modeling packages must understand the assumption underlying the models • Help in overcoming difficulties: End users may run into a situation for which they cannot find an explanation

7. 1. The Internet Two aspects of the Internet: • The Internet mindset • Communication is personal, not mass market • Customer contact is interactive, not broadcast • The customer time frame is theirs, not yours • The culture is bottom-up, not top-down

8. 1. The Internet Two aspects of the Internet: (cont.) • Internet Communities: Four needs • Communities for transaction: people buying and selling • Communities of interest: people talking about particular subjects • Communities of relationship: people talking about life expectancies and about troubling personal experiences • Communities of fantasy: people take on different personae and act out all kinds of fantasies

9. 2. Mobile and Wireless Computing: The Incredible, Shrinking Computer • Desktop computers • Luggables - 25 lbs • True portables - 7 lbs • Pen-based clipboard (with or without kb) • Palmtop computers - PC and electronic organizer

10. 2. Mobile and Wireless Computing: The Widespread Use of E-mail E-mail provides the platform for: • Integrated voice, mail, fax, and person-to-person messaging • Work flow and work group applications • People-to-application communications • “Mail-enabled applications” via messaging application program interfaces (APIs) • Inter-company transmissions via electronic data interchange (EDI) • Worldwide people-to-people communication via the Internet

11. 2. Mobile and Wireless Computing: The Widespread Use of E-mail Mail-enabled applications • One that uses messaging handling facilities of an e-mail system to handle its communication functions • Application is built on top of the mail system • Message passing applications are not new: e.g., airline reservation and Electronic Fund Transfer

12. 2. Mobile and Wireless Computing: Mobile Customers • Companies are taking advantage of computing devices, e-mail, and wireless networks to serve customers in new and creative ways • Companies maintain the all-important link to their customer - from wherever they are located

13. 3. Rich Media • The newest computing platform: presenting electronic data and information in their most usable form • Combination of time-based media (voice, animation, and video) and space-based media (text, graphics, and images) • Choosing the right medium for the message • Making more than two trips to the car to unload the equipment

14. 3. Rich Media • 1950s to 1970s: employees at work site • 1980s: organization opened their computers to suppliers and customers • Late 1980s: for mobile employees direct access to corporate computers • 1990s: universe of users expanding further to consumers

15. 3. Rich Media: To Cope with Complexity • Web sites: Help people grasp complex information and concepts more easily - multimedia presentations • Data Visualization Systems: Coping with large amounts of data

16. 3. Rich Media: For More Knowledgeable Users • On-demand training: just-in-time training, people can access training whenever they need it via their PC. • Training via simulation: Training is stand alone, not embedded in an application . This computer-based training (CBT) is not meant to be an adjunct to stand–up classroom instruction, it is meant to replace it.

17. Implications for IS Management • These technologies can be used to record corporate memory, e.g., portables lend themselves to people entering or retrieving small pieces of information, coupled with community technology and the Net entries by mobile employees can more easily be shared. • Technology may need some new corporate guidelines. Issues such as privacy need to be resolved - control over information dissemination.

18. Implications for IS Management • New technological developments are causing computer use to take another great leap forward, as it did with the PC; computing is becoming a major tool in more employee’s lives. Form teams to study ways to take advantage of mobile computing, e-mail, multimedia, and the Internet. More pilot projects implies more likely technology transfer is to occur. • Use of these technologies should not be unguided. IS management needs to be out in front. New technologies spur a new work environment and a new marketplace.