This DB will be used to set the stage for the Ethics DB which is a component which is located in the Course Conclusion LM.
Introductory Basis
It has come full circle as we now understand CISS 100 concepts and applications and can assess and discuss technology with a basis of understanding and discriminating terminology. To illustrate this and to start, please review the week 1 presentation: Emergent & Disruptive Change paying special attention to the Business – Organization/Society – IT Triangle for this DB.
Technology has changed the world and the Internet and the Web have become a critical and required component of a successful business. To set the stage and illustrate the accelerating and inevitable changes in our global economy, please see the following: Shift Happens Original, Shift Happens Updated 2012.
Now if that wasn’t enough to convince you, please see this article posted in my Emergent Topics: U.S. sees tech’s ‘center of gravity’ shifting to Asia – Computerworld. Also keep in mind the Emergent & Disruptive Change content (Moore’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law, Gilder’s law, Network Economic Theory, etc.).
In this discussion I would like you to provide the group with your favorite emergent, evolving or convergent technology/business process and how the technology is applied in a specific discipline or business as presented in the Information Systems Analysis & Design or Emergent & Disruptive Change Lecture Topics.
Concerning convergence, we are familiar with technology convergence where 2 technologies combine to form 1 product (e.g. the emergence of cell phones with cameras). This new converged item forced us to create new or redefine policies since people were able to take pictures in new places (e.g. concerts and arts due to copyrights and photography, gym locker rooms, children’s playgrounds, etc. for privacy)
Technology has also resulted in converged business processes. 20 years ago Wedding Photographers would take photographs and send their photos off to be developed and mounted. The emergence of digital photography has forced today’s Wedding Photographers to take the pictures, process them, and mount them to remain competitive. We are seeing this throughout the “emergent flat marketplace” as UPS is now in the consulting business and Apple is in the education business with ITunesU.
Now another topic is social media and Facebook and these and their privacy policies are prime areas for the Ethics DB. I am not a big fan of Facebook due to its inherent security risks (research Firesheep) but I also recognize its merit as it has re-initiated contact between old acquaintances and even played a big part in the 2010/2011 Egyptian Revolution. Most recently the Gov’t is using it/harvesting it to detect and monitor disease control. Think about it, people post that they have a runny nose or a sore throat or…. and this documentation takes place on a far greater scale and far before they go to the doctors. Just like the plane crash in the Hudson River where Twitter had 10,000 tweets before the story broke on CNN (where CNN itself had revolutionized up to the minute news broadcasts during the Middle East wars), social media knows and distributes content first.
Now returning to the downside, to illustrate the latent security concerns of Facebook, consider that people are documenting their lives on Facebook and this information is available through Facebook’s public API (despite your security settings). Now, if you lose your password or speak with a representative how do you identify yourself – mother’s maiden name, the street you grew up on, first pet, etc. It is possible right now to develop an expert system that can extract this information in real-time allowing you to perpetrate (identity theft) another individual. This is frightening. In any event, I do not wish to discuss Facebook here but I feel we need to spread our knowledge so here is just a quick tutorial for our assessment of your personal Facebook settings: http://www.cio.com/article/690992/Facebook_Privacy_11_Settings_to_Revisit_Now?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2011-10-14
If you feel compelled to discuss Facebook or social media, here is a basic framework to discuss the various components of the information transfer and capture – http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/a_taxonomy_of_s.html, as we must discuss it from an IS perspective.
Resources
You are free to both find and express your own emergent or convergent technology and its application however if you are at a loss please explore the Emergent Topics as there is quite a bit of information or you can also visit cutting-edge think tank sites like globalfuturist.com, or extremetech.com or http://globalfuturist.com/
DB Assignment:
In this discussion I would like you to provide the group with your favorite emergent, evolving, or convergent technology/business process and how the technology is applied in a specific discipline or business as presented in the Information Systems Analysis & Design or Emergent & Disruptive Change Lecture Topics. Please choose carefully as your chosen topic will be expanded in the subsequent Ethics DB so students may wish to review that at this point as well.
Thank you,