Week 2 Discussion Comments

You made some very good points this week. I also appreciate the examples you included from work environments. My comments on each discussion follow.

W2D1 Does IT Matter article

Google and Dominican are different: I believe that there is a distinction between IT companies and other companies. In IT companies, there is the "normal IT" (back office systems, accounting systems, internal e-mail etc.). The same rules that apply to "normal" companies apply to these systems. IT companies also produce systems for direct delivery to customers such as the Apple iOS operating system in the iPhone, Google apps and Google search for direct use by customers, and Microsoft Azure (Cloud services). Most of these are or were strategic investments in new product development and not just "IT Investments".

 

Training for new systems: Some postings talked about significant investments to train employees to use new IT Systems. Employees must be trained in new systems in order for the investment in the system to be most effective. When you are in a management role, you will need to deal with the trade-off of temporarily reducing capacity and output in your department in order to provide your team with training. When faced with this trade-off, you can remember this Discussion.

Is the IT Build out finished? I think we are just at the beginning of "The Internet of Things" where snow plows, refrigerators, and cars will be loaded with digital technology and communicating with the Internet. This will give rise to significant new applications for businesses.

Is the IT Build out finished? The build out of data centers at non-tech companies may have peaked. For example, Dominican is running Canvas on servers in Utah instead of at Dominican. Student e-mail is no longer handled on servers at Dominican. Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, HP and others are building huge data centers which, in my opinion, will take over most work currently done at individual companies. As an analogy, individual companies used to generate their own electricity before this work was taken over by electric utilities. Think of the big cloud companies like Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and HP as the new information technology utilities. Note: There are always changes in the on-site / off-site balance. Some people are now installing solar panels so not all electricity generation is being done centrally.

Cost of technology: It is now possible to start a business without making a major up-front technology investment (data center, servers, software licenses). A startup can get as much infrastructure as is required by making pay-as-you go arrangements with an information technology utility (cloud provider).

The only way to support Carr's claim that IT management is boring is if you only consider the routine management of technology infrastructure such as the PCs in Dominican's classrooms and the routine operation of Dominican's administrative systems (registration, grading,...). Deciding where to apply technology next and how to change business practices because of the availability of new technology is far from boring.

Personal: I really do manage my IT hardware and software to minimize vulnerabilities. I use Time Machine to backup my MACbook (2 alternating drives stored in different locations). I use Acronis True Image to backup my main Windows machine -- both to external hard drives and to cloud storage. Finally, I have Acronis take a snapshot of my Personal One Drive every night. Also, everything in my Dominican One Drive is duplicated on the machine in my office and on my Widows PC at home. I use a VPN to encrypt all network communications when I am on the road and store all passwords in LastPass.

I usually do not lead in technology. I just donated my 2011 MACbook and replaced it with a refurbished 2015 Macbook. in early 2019, I retired my 2013 Dell (put it in a box) and order a 2018 Dell XPS. I am planning to make a large number of new videos this fall and the greater processing speed of the new machine will make a big difference. I have no plans to upgrade my iPhone 6-plus.

W2D2

One person was surprised that IT is important in health care. I have a personal example. My wife was in the hospital in San Diego in March. In May, her primary care physician in Chicago was able to access records on everything that happened in San Diego including the results of every blood test. This worked for two reasons. First, both Chicago and San Diego were using the same Electronic Medical Records system (EPIC) and second, my wife had the foresight to fill out a ton of authorization forms while still in San Diego.