Week 1 Discussion Comments 2014

I would like to highlight the comments made in several areas.

Discussions 2 and 3:

What is a Computer Specialist?: Think beyond a person that fixes printers or Excel problems or recovers lost passwords. Instead, think of specialists in Enterprise Resource Planning Systems such as SAP and database management systems such as Oracle, Learning Management Systems such as Canvas. Some IT specialits would be skilled in planning, building, and configuring data centers with racks and racks of servers and disk drives that fill a large building. Others are very skilled in certain programming languages or in managing complex software development projects

(optional) Please see this document for details. Look at the very last page (page 36) to see a list of about 60 different jobs that can be found in large IT departments and in other areas of some companies. If you want to know details about any of these 60 different jobs, look at the first 36 pages of the document.

More than efficiency : A number of you mentioned use of technology can make a business more efficient. This is true. you stated the MBAs can lower the cost of operations. Be careful when lowering costs that you do not take actions that drive too many customers away and sacrifice the future of the company. As managers, you should also be looking for how technology can make big changes in your business. Think of Neflix changing from mailing DVDs to streaming videos and Dell Computer making machines to order very quickly based on customer choices.

Adaptable: You mentioned managers especially older ones need to adapt to technology. This is true. Younger also need to adapt as technology will change greatly over the course of their careers. I have found that I needed to replace my technology knowledge about once every five years. I have found that reading material that I was not "supposed to" read but that interested me advanced my career significantly. On one of my early assignments, I took home a different technical computer manual each night. Soon I was answering questions for everyone else on the team. I was recognized as a "expert" and promoted. You probably would not enjoy technial "stuff" as much as I did when I was 22 years old but you can find material to read the relates to your job or to your company. The "trick" is to find something that you enjoy enough that you will want to read it.

Small companies and tech: You commented that small companies can have an advantage over larger companies if they make smart use of technology. It is possible to use tech in a small company with a fairly small initial investment by using cloud computing. In my opinion, the small company has an even greater advantage if they find a new way of doing things (Uber) vs. trying to do something where a big company (Federal Express) has an advantage due to prior huge investments.

No technology 40 years ago?: On behalf of the "over 40" students in the class, I thought I would provide my historical perspective on technology 40 years ago. Forty years ago, I was twenty six years old working at a large oil company with 8 mainframes and hundreds of terminals all in the same building. The company had "high speed" dedicated phone lines to their refineries. Complex mainframe programs calculated weekly the optimum mix of products for the refineries to produce based on current market prices. You will do something similar using a laptop and Excel Solver later in the course. So, there was plenty of technology 40 years ago but it confined to places where large investments could be justified such as university data centers, funded research labs, governments, and large companies.

Groupon: A number of you commented on Groupon. One of the comments was that "Business school Professors can be wrong" because one thought that Groupon's business model could not succeed. This continues in the tradition of the Harvard Professor who gave Fred Smith a "C" on a paper because his idea of overnight delivery "was not practical" Fred Smith went on to create and run Federal Express.

College Bookstores: One post ended with "I don't go to the college bookstore any more". Using MBAs and IT to make selling books face-to-face more efficient is not going to save bookstores. Changes in the business model and new approaches will be required.

Building a Team: Many of your comments shows that you appreciate the need for both business and technical skills and that it is not a choice of "business" or "computer specialist". You will probably manage a project (or two or twenty) during your career. Many projects succeed or fail based on setting the right scope and getting the right staffing (skills).

Personal Opinion: Not all IT Specialists need an MBA or business knowledge. I would rather have a Network Specialist who had the appropriate CISCO certifactions than one that had an MBA. CISCO is the leading IT Network hardware/software company and defines the way that most corporate networks are configured.