We Are in the Information Age. A Time When...

 
• Knowledge is power
• Knowledge workers outnumber all other workers by a 4 to 1 margin

A KNOWLEDGE WORKER works with and produces information as a product. As a knowledge worker, how do you work with and produce information?

YOUR FOCUS IN THIS CHAPTER

 
• Management Information Systems & The MIS Challenge
• Factors Shaping Business Today
• The Role of IT in the Information Age
• Information as a New Business Resource
• Your Role as a Knowledge Worker

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS (MIS)...

deals with the planning for, development, management, and use of information technology tools to help people perform all tasks related to information processing and management.

MIS Deals with Three Important Organizational Resources:

 
1. Information
2. Information technology
3. People (the most important).

Can you find those 3 resources for the organizations in Photo Essay 1-1 on pages 6-7?

THE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS CHALLENGE

 
• What businesses do
• Customer moment of value
• The role of information technology

All businesses must strive to meet The MIS Challenge. The complete MIS Challenge is in Figure 1.1 on page 5.

THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information technology (IT) is a set of tools that can help provide the right people with the right information at the right time.

REMEMBER: What you don't know may put you out of business.

HOW THIS BOOK ADDRESSES MIS & THE MIS CHALLENGE

 
• The Information Resource
  • The "I" in IT.
  • Chapters 1 - 3
• The Information Technology Resource
  • The "T" in IT.
  • Chapters 4 - 7
• The People Resource
  • The glue that binds the "I" and "T" in IT.
  • Chapters 8 - 10

FACTORS SHAPING BUSINESS TODAY

 
• Globalization
• Competition
• Information as a Key Resource
• The Virtual Workplace and Telecommuting
• Electronic Commerce
• Knowledge Worker Computing

GLOBALIZATION

 
• Few businesses today are wholly domestic.
• There are 260 million consumers in the U.S.
• There are 5 billion consumers world-wide.

A TRANSNATIONAL FIRM is a firm that produces and sells products and services in countries all over the world.

COMPETITION

 
• It's everywhere.
• Globalization has increased competition.
• IT helps small firms compete against larger ones.
• Competition is good for consumers.

INFORMATION AS A KEY RESOURCE

 
• We are in the information age.
• Knowledge is power.
• You must know your competition.
• You must know your customers.
• We operate in a wants-driven economy. So, you have to know what people want.

THE VIRTUAL WORKPLACE AND TELECOMMUTING

Among the various ways to restructure, many organizations are choosing to create a virtual workplace and/or have their employees telecommute.

Both of these concepts are very similar.

 
• VIRTUAL WORKPLACE - a technology-enabled workplace. No walls or boundaries. Work anytime, anyplace, linked to other people and information.

   

• TELECOMMUTING - the use of communications technology to work in a place other than a central location. A person who works via telecommuting is called a TELECOMMUTER.

SOME TELECOMMUTING STATISTICS

 
• Over 15 million people in the U.S. telecommute.
• That number is expected to grow by 20% for several years.
• Every industry is planning to increase their use of telecommuting (Figure 1.5 page 15).

Would you rather telecommute or drive through traffic everyday to work?

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

A modern methodology that addresses the use of information technology as an essential enabler of business.

EXTERNAL ELECTRONIC COMMERCE - the use of IT to support how a business interacts with the marketplace.

INTERNAL ELECTRONIC COMMERCE - the use of IT to support internal processes, functions, and operations.

Electronic Commerce Includes:

 
• Transactions over the Internet.
• Transactions through electronic data interchange (EDI).
• Gathering customer and competitor information (competitive intelligence).
• Distributing information electronically.

KNOWLEDGE WORKER COMPUTING

Places technology, technology power, software, information, and technology knowledge in the hands of those who need it - knowledge workers.

Technology knowledge is most important. To participate in knowledge worker computing, you must learn how to use technology.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ITS ROLE IN THE INFORMATION AGE

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY is any computer-based tool that people use to work with information and support the information and information-processing needs of an organization.

Businesses Use Information Technology in 3 Ways:

 
1. To support information-processing tasks.
2. As an enabler of innovation.
3. As a collapser of time and space.

TO SUPPORT INFORMATION-PROCESSING TASKS

 
1. CAPTURING information - at its point of origin.
2. CONVEYING information - in its most useful form.
3. CREATING information - to obtain new information.
4. CRADLING information - for use at a later time.
5. COMMUNICATING information - to other people or another location.

AS AN ENABLER OF INNOVATION

 
• IT is not innovation all by itself.
• IT, however, can enable innovation.
• FedEx used IT to build customer-oriented tracking software.

What other examples of IT innovation can you think of?

AS A COLLAPSER OF TIME AND SPACE

 
• A typical CD-ROM can hold 650 million characters of information. That's:
  • 325,000 pages of text, or
  • 650 500-sheet reams of paper.
• In early 1999, the typical home computer was capable of performing 450 million instructions per second. How fast are they today?

INFORMATION AS A NEW BUSINESS RESOURCE

Information is a key resource in The MIS Challenge. But what is information?

DATA - are any raw facts or observations that describe a particular phenomenon.

INFORMATION - is simply data that has a particular meaning within a specific context.

DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION - DEFINING VALUE

You can determine the value of information by evaluating its dimensions.

 
• TIME DIMENSION - the "when" aspect of information.
• CONTENT DIMENSION - the "what" aspect of information.
• FORM DIMENSION - the "how" aspect of information.

DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION
See Figure 1.6 page 21

TIME - when Timeliness Currency FORM - how Detail Presentation

CONTENT- what Accuracy Relevance Completeness

YOUR ROLE AS A KNOWLEDGE WORKER

To be successful today as a knowledge worker, you need to understand:

 
• The true nature of information (its dimensions).
• How to be an information-literate knowledge worker.
• Your ethical responsibilities of working with information.

AN INFORMATION-LITERATE KNOWLEDGE WORKER

 
1. can define what information is needed
2. knows how and where to obtain information
3. understands the meaning of information
4. can act appropriately on information to achieve the greatest advantage.

In all instances, he or she uses information according to legal and ethical constructs.

As a Knowledge Worker, You Have 5 Charges

 
1. Define what information you need.
2. Know how and where to obtain information.
3. Understand the meaning of information.
4. Act appropriately based on information.
5. Use information adhering to both legal and ethical constructs.

 
• Charges #1-4 relate to how you use information for the benefit of your organization.
• Charge #5 relates to using information in a socially responsible way.
• This relates to ETHICS - sets of principles or standards that help guide behavior, actions, and choices.

• Ethics are often different from laws.
• Laws require or prohibit some action on your part.
• Ethics are more of a matter of personal interpretation.
• What may be ethical to one person is not necessarily to another.
• As an information-literate knowledge worker, your actions with respect to using information should always be both legal and ethical.

TO SUMMARIZE

 
• We are indeed in the information age.
• All businesses must coordinate their use of IT, information, and people (The MIS Challenge).
• The many forces shaping business today include:
  • Globalization
  • Competition
  • Information as a key resource
  • The virtual workplace and telecommuting
  • Electronic commerce
  • Knowledge worker computing.

TO SUMMARIZE

 
• Businesses are using information technology (IT) in three ways:
  • to support information-processing tasks
  • as an enabler of innovation
  • as a collapser of time and space
• Information is also a key resource in business today. The value of information can be defined according to its dimensions:
  • Time (when)
  • Content (what)
  • Form (how)

TO SUMMARIZE

Finally, people are the most important resource in any organization. As an information-literate knowledge worker, you have 5 charges:

 
1. Define what information you need
2. Know how and where to obtain information
3. Understand the meaning of information
4. Act appropriately based on information
5. Use information legally and ethically