Yes, its been an amazing journey for me taking MB362 for the past few months.... From the first day i step into the seminar room till yesterday examination in the IT lab, Prof Gilbert have never fail to impress me with the materials and the way the module was conducted.
Three Cheers... to Prof Gilbert and all that have providered me with such a wonderful journey learning some of the most impressive technologies and applications aroundthis earth I am living in.
Yup.. We had our examination for the module yesterday evening that marks the end of the module. Its a very tough paper that have me wondering what have I answered correctly. And guess what?? Its an E-examination... there is no answer booklet of the usual examination, all our answers are entered into the Excel worksheet provided in the PC in the IT lab and save into the harddrive. Its the first for me that examination is conducted in this fashion, I call it the Exam2.0 of the new age.
Its been a wonderful journey for the past months attending the seminars of the module and learning lots and lots of new stuffs every week in and out. And the best of all is the way the module is conducted which bring much live and interest into the lesson instead of the usual lecture-tutorial way of lesson.
I could not have ask for more in this module and the way the seminars are conducted. I will strongly encourage my peers who are interested to take up this module with no hesitation.
Cheers!!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
16th April 2007
Its been 2 weeks since I last update my blog... Really been busy with the coming exams... Study... Study... and Study....
Decided that I should enter a short entry here to release stress from the books and notes from the past days...
We had a super long last seminar of the module with all teams from both session met for the very first time. All the teams did a great presentation of own very own businese plans as well as creative ideas. I thought all teams did very well for this presentation.
Its been a wonderful journey learning from each other with the last session ended getting to see the other session groups products... Sad to said the learning curve comes to a stand still at this moment of time. However, I think this course have really taught all of us some real useful tools that we can really apply in our real life in the near future. And I truely believes that our WEB 2.0 journey have just begin........
Good Luck to all forks sitting with me in the IT Lab this coming Thursday (You know who you are)... Cheers!
Decided that I should enter a short entry here to release stress from the books and notes from the past days...
We had a super long last seminar of the module with all teams from both session met for the very first time. All the teams did a great presentation of own very own businese plans as well as creative ideas. I thought all teams did very well for this presentation.
Its been a wonderful journey learning from each other with the last session ended getting to see the other session groups products... Sad to said the learning curve comes to a stand still at this moment of time. However, I think this course have really taught all of us some real useful tools that we can really apply in our real life in the near future. And I truely believes that our WEB 2.0 journey have just begin........
Good Luck to all forks sitting with me in the IT Lab this coming Thursday (You know who you are)... Cheers!
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Lesson 11: Cyber Security!
Wow... How time past us... Its the second last seminar we had last week and it will be the last this coming Thursday. Have been busy for the past one week getting our Business Plan and presentation slides up for submission tomorrow. In fact I have just finish up the integration of our presentation Powerpoint slides for tomorrow.
For the past 11 weeks of seminars, each and every sessions have been so fun filling and interesting. And with no surprise was last week seminar, its been the most interactive and interesting one with the game product by Prof Gilbert for us named 'Cyberterror Beta. The game we played was about the treats post by present cyber world and technologies advances. The objective was for us to understand the effect and power of these treats that we are exposed to.
And this is the first time the whole class got together to work out a strategy as a team... We were all first separated into different teams, The Observers, The terrorists, The Banks, The Port, The Travel and The Police teams. The objective of the game is to allocate our resources to protect vulnerable assets from attrackers. The attackers have a few effective weapons. However, we don't know what they are.
After the first round of game where each team is to act as its own individual to protect its assets. The terrorists managed to successfully attacked The Bank 1. In the second round of the game, all the teams is to gang up together to agreed with a strategic plan to successfully protect all our resources. After careful and interesting discussion with every members and using the scenario base analysis to help us in planning. We try to figure out the best plan to protect ourselves with our resources, but never did we know we are still defected by the terrorists.
But the surprise of the day came was that the Observers themselves are actually acting as spy for the terrorists on our plans to protect ourselves. And at the end of this Cyberterror game, we learned that its never easy to be on the defensive side and worst still with loop holes in your systems that will give yourselves away. In such scenarios, you are sure bound to be at the losing end to the terrorists treats.
At the end of the day, everyone of us enjoyed ourselves in this last lecture seminar with Prof Gilbert and the Cyberterror game played. I could not held by feel that something will be missing in my life after this week presentation. As my learning curve have come to an end with MB362, in which I have never fail to walk out of the seminar room learning something new and most importantly interesting and disruptive to my life(in a good way).
Okay... before I go... here is a link to a website with some real detail information about Cyber Securities such as issues and tips we should really start following....
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/
For the past 11 weeks of seminars, each and every sessions have been so fun filling and interesting. And with no surprise was last week seminar, its been the most interactive and interesting one with the game product by Prof Gilbert for us named 'Cyberterror Beta. The game we played was about the treats post by present cyber world and technologies advances. The objective was for us to understand the effect and power of these treats that we are exposed to.
And this is the first time the whole class got together to work out a strategy as a team... We were all first separated into different teams, The Observers, The terrorists, The Banks, The Port, The Travel and The Police teams. The objective of the game is to allocate our resources to protect vulnerable assets from attrackers. The attackers have a few effective weapons. However, we don't know what they are.
After the first round of game where each team is to act as its own individual to protect its assets. The terrorists managed to successfully attacked The Bank 1. In the second round of the game, all the teams is to gang up together to agreed with a strategic plan to successfully protect all our resources. After careful and interesting discussion with every members and using the scenario base analysis to help us in planning. We try to figure out the best plan to protect ourselves with our resources, but never did we know we are still defected by the terrorists.
But the surprise of the day came was that the Observers themselves are actually acting as spy for the terrorists on our plans to protect ourselves. And at the end of this Cyberterror game, we learned that its never easy to be on the defensive side and worst still with loop holes in your systems that will give yourselves away. In such scenarios, you are sure bound to be at the losing end to the terrorists treats.
At the end of the day, everyone of us enjoyed ourselves in this last lecture seminar with Prof Gilbert and the Cyberterror game played. I could not held by feel that something will be missing in my life after this week presentation. As my learning curve have come to an end with MB362, in which I have never fail to walk out of the seminar room learning something new and most importantly interesting and disruptive to my life(in a good way).
Okay... before I go... here is a link to a website with some real detail information about Cyber Securities such as issues and tips we should really start following....
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Lesson 10: Business Planning!
Its been a busy week for me this week after spending whole of my last week in lab rushing my lab assignment project. After the lab assessment on Monday, I have been busy with other reports and FYP assignments..... And guess what.. its time to submit our Business Plan for this module soon too.
We had a detail seminar and discussion with Prof Gilbert last Thursday on Business Planning as well as what is expected from us in our Business Plan reports. We went through quite a few topics such as Developing a Business Plan, Starting a business, Characteristics of small business, The risk in starting a business and the Reasons for Failure of a business. Lastly we were also introduced to Storytelling.
I was lucky that I have the exposure to starting a small business in a young age of 19, when my elder brother give up his job then to start up a small retail business in the fashion industry. And of course later on in the years, I went on to start my interest cum hobby fashion design label, Labelless. These have been some great experiences and exposure I have pick up and value them along these years.
As Prof Gilbert went through the points presented in the Powerpoint slides on the topics on starting up a small business mention above. I could not help but keep knotting my head in agreedment with the pointers and facts presented. And when he mention that sometimes a business is not consider a failure if the party exit by selling away his/her business, rings a bell in my mind. Because my elder brother have since exit his business for 3 years after running it for a good 4 years. Many have consider my brother's business a failure but yet in our eyes the truth is very much the other way.
As he saw a good opportunity to exit the business at its peak when someone made a great offer to him too much for him to say "No". And the best part of it is not the cash return from the sale of the business away but the experiences, contacts made and lesson learn during these 4 years in charge and running of the business is seem invaluable to both of us. And of course, today I am still holding on to my own 'Baby' clothing label business in face of the intense competition in the market from many new start ups from young folks just like what I did 3 years back. Okay, so much about some of my experiences to share with you guys but not to bored you people to sleep.
We had a detail seminar and discussion with Prof Gilbert last Thursday on Business Planning as well as what is expected from us in our Business Plan reports. We went through quite a few topics such as Developing a Business Plan, Starting a business, Characteristics of small business, The risk in starting a business and the Reasons for Failure of a business. Lastly we were also introduced to Storytelling.
I was lucky that I have the exposure to starting a small business in a young age of 19, when my elder brother give up his job then to start up a small retail business in the fashion industry. And of course later on in the years, I went on to start my interest cum hobby fashion design label, Labelless. These have been some great experiences and exposure I have pick up and value them along these years.
As Prof Gilbert went through the points presented in the Powerpoint slides on the topics on starting up a small business mention above. I could not help but keep knotting my head in agreedment with the pointers and facts presented. And when he mention that sometimes a business is not consider a failure if the party exit by selling away his/her business, rings a bell in my mind. Because my elder brother have since exit his business for 3 years after running it for a good 4 years. Many have consider my brother's business a failure but yet in our eyes the truth is very much the other way.
As he saw a good opportunity to exit the business at its peak when someone made a great offer to him too much for him to say "No". And the best part of it is not the cash return from the sale of the business away but the experiences, contacts made and lesson learn during these 4 years in charge and running of the business is seem invaluable to both of us. And of course, today I am still holding on to my own 'Baby' clothing label business in face of the intense competition in the market from many new start ups from young folks just like what I did 3 years back. Okay, so much about some of my experiences to share with you guys but not to bored you people to sleep.
I got to received a comment from Prof Gilbert some 2 days back which I thought why not to share it here and of course with people reading my blog if something could be created from here.
Here is the comment posted as well as my reply:
cellprof said...
I wonder how we could test whether a podcast is a good way to deliver my lectures? anybody's lectures?
BTW, the "meaning of life" is probably a circular question. I think the answer is "life is". See Wikipedia for an effort to explore this topic.
March 26, 2007 6:24 AM
MB362Gabriel said...
I guess a good way to find out is to have a short lecture deliver thru Podcast to the class make available in Edventure with a short online MCQ assignment related to the lecture deliver. Why not?
I always ask myself the question "meaning of life" but I have never seriously gone into exploring the topic till tonight. And the one answer I like best that I just found in Wikipedia is 'to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general'.
March 26, 2007 9:08 AM
I really think that we should give it a try since the course is to really let us not only learn about Web 2.0 but of course also to experience it. Since the NTU is also promoting E-learning where this week is the E-learning week in my school where all our lectures are being deliver online in the Edventure. Maybe we can have a short lecture deliver with the Podcast on MB362 discussion from Prof Gilbert?
And to find out if it is really useful and working, I would suggest that the Podcast lecture is followed with a short MCQ quiz and feedback session in the Edventure at the end of the Podcast session. This will help to collectively get the feedback from us (students) to help Prof Gilbert (lecturers) find out more about our experiences if Podcast will be a sucessful tools to aids in the Education systems.
I really think this will work much better than the present Wiki homework. As this have been a problem which Prof Gilbert have ask for solution and comments from us why its not working. On my personal point of view, I enjoy blogging more than updating the Wiki as I felt the Wiki lack the interactivity between me and my readers. As my blog allows me to receive comments from my readers which I truly enjoy reading these comments as it bring about connectivity between us. But for the Wiki, I kind of a update and full stop thingy. Which does not encourage me to actually log back in every week to input my thoughts.
Hopefully my suggestion with the Podcast lecture deliver and online quiz and comments may work much better than the Wiki?? Maybe the next batch of students taking MB362 will know the answer...
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Lesson 9: Scenario Planning!
We had a very interesting seminar session last Thursday, "Developing and Using Scenario Planning to Forecast Competitors' Strategies".
What is 'Scenario Planning'?
Scenario planning is a model for learning about the future in which a coporate strategy is formed by drawing a small number of scenarios, stories how the future may unfold, and how this may affect an issue that confronts the corporation.
This is really something I have done during my attactment period in Motorola's S&E Asia Networks Strategy and Business Development team. And one thing for sure I did was Competitive Intelligences (CI) every month for the team report to higher level meeting. Every morning when I reached the office and switch on the my desktop computer, I will spend the next 1 hour or so going through these CI emails, newsletters and alerts from varies big CI resource firms around the world on the latest updates in the market places as well as whats' up on our competition's movement in the industry.
This was something really interesting and keeping me busy throughout the whole attachment period to collect CI informations for the team. And seriously speaking, I really enjoy every moment of it to the later stage where I was call upon to do strategic planning and business development.
Okay, I am really eager to elaborate farther to you guys more on my experience in the attachment job scope and stuffs. However, due to the sensitivity level of my work and our team in Motorola, I could not provide more to full up the gaps here. However, I would said my experience and learning opportunity there is second to none I have experienced so far. And its so challenging in Strategic planning and CI data collection work that you will get hook on to your work so much that you fall in Love with it. Hahah... Maybe because I am a person who enjoy challenges, if you do so this could be an area of job scope you can consider joining. Who knows we maybe one day competing against each other in the real world. Sound interesting to me...
Okay, Prof Gilbert go on to give us a very detail seminar on how to go about using scenario planning to help in our forecast of competitors' strategies. We look at building Multiple scenarios on a particular subject, a robust tool for exploring the likely consequences of current decisions in alternative futures.
One great example brought up by Prof Gilbert in the discussion was the use of a table to represent the Structural Dimension and Scenarios. The need to identify the structural factors to aids in the decision making is rather important. Looking for at least 3-4 factors will be best as 2 is too little to provide any insights and too many may form contradicting answers. The important of picking the best and worst case scenarios with a few other inbetween scenarios to illustrate the possible outcome of a certain decision making is the last step to complete the example.
With the multiple cases present in the table its time to perform Scenarios Analysis to scan and monitor external changes, prioritize large-scale reseach activities, game competitive responses and create or extend a learning organization.
To summarize the scenario planning and analysis work, here is the 'Ten Steps' to help you get it right:
• Develop CI planning & analysis premises
• Define Time Horizons and Decision Space
• Historical Review: search for structure
• Identify Common & Conflicting Assumptions
• Determine Indicators of Structural Shifts
• Build Draft Scenarios to fill Decision Space
• Develop Strategies for all Competitors
• Map Strategies against Scenarios
• Validate Alternative Strategies
• Select or Adapt Most Robust Strategy
• Define Time Horizons and Decision Space
• Historical Review: search for structure
• Identify Common & Conflicting Assumptions
• Determine Indicators of Structural Shifts
• Build Draft Scenarios to fill Decision Space
• Develop Strategies for all Competitors
• Map Strategies against Scenarios
• Validate Alternative Strategies
• Select or Adapt Most Robust Strategy
Some traps to avoid in a Scenario Planning:
1. Treating scenarios as forecasts
2. Constructing scenarios based on too simplistic a difference, such as optimistic and pessimistic
3. Failling to make scenario global enough in scope
4. Failing to focus scenarios in areas of potential impact on the business
5. Treating scenarios as an informational or instructional tool rather that for participative/strategy formation
6. Not having an adequate process for engaging executive teams in the scenario planning process
7. Failing to put enough imaginative stimulus into the scenario design
8. Not using an experienced facilitator
Wanna learn more on Scenario Planning? Check these few sites out, which I thought are quite good with lots of insights:
Cheers!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Lesson 8: Interactive Designs
We started the new term with a series of presentation for each of the groups on the Proof-Of-Concept for our team proposed project on the Mobile based application for the tourists. Again this was kind of interesting as we can see new ideas and concepts being presented from each team and I couldn't help but admired some of the design concepts and presentations being put up.
First, our team put up a short introduction of the usage and applications of our project E-Sing targeted on the tourist upon arrival in Singapore. We did in a different way this time round without using Powerpoint for our presentation but with the knowledge I have gained while working in Motorola by using their emulator of the Mobile phone to present the software that represent part of our application to the class.
This emulator actually behaves just like our mobile handsets that able us to run and test our application software written in Java programming language. And thats how we are able to present to the class how actually this BuSmart application which is a mobile Bus Directory of the Singapore Bus system that can be run in a mobile handset environment.
First, our team put up a short introduction of the usage and applications of our project E-Sing targeted on the tourist upon arrival in Singapore. We did in a different way this time round without using Powerpoint for our presentation but with the knowledge I have gained while working in Motorola by using their emulator of the Mobile phone to present the software that represent part of our application to the class.
This emulator actually behaves just like our mobile handsets that able us to run and test our application software written in Java programming language. And thats how we are able to present to the class how actually this BuSmart application which is a mobile Bus Directory of the Singapore Bus system that can be run in a mobile handset environment.
Anyone interested in this Motorola emulator application and wants to learn more on how to design their own mobile application to run on their mobile handsets can sign up as a menber and learn more about it in MotoDev website. This is a mobile application developer club set up by Motorola Electronics to encourage more mobile application developers to come together to share and learn more about mobile applications development. Here is the link:
http://developer.motorola.com/
However, team Visionaries once again caught my attention with their Creative and Interactive application user interface design with the help of Flash media. I thought their application is rather innovative with the use of sound and visual effects to enhance the user experince and catches user attention. Just like Prof Gilbert had mention, initially it's not very clear of what is to be expected on the menu bar. But once you start to interact with the application, it started to attract your attention and ultimately makes you want to find out more about it.
And this leads to the day seminar topic on "Interactive Designs".
We touched on the Critical Design Trends that an application designer should look into while trying to work on his/her application development. Prof Gilbert move on to play a very simple game with us to illustrate to us the most important factor to take note of while designing our application for the users. This game required the two players to each take turn to choose a number for a set of numbers between 1 to 9 till either side got a total of 15 from the addition of the numbers each pick. The class take quite awhile to figure out how this game should be played and this caused quite a number of confusion among us. Prof Gilbert then came back to explain to us the concept of the same game could be made easier to understand with the introduction of simple symbols like X and O that we are more familiar with the game Tic-Tac-Toe. And this illustration of effective design concept makes all sense to me how much a different it can be when you are able to present your design in an Interactive yet Simple and Attractive to the users.
We also discussed briefly on the Used Case designing concept that can help in the process of system designs. Software Engineering is the key to the effective software system design process. And here is some addition information I have found out about Use Case study to shared with you guys.
An important part of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the facilities for drawing use case diagrams.
Use cases are used during the analysis phase of a project to identify and partition system functionality. They separate the system into actors and use cases.
Actors represent roles that can are played by users of the system. Those users can be humans, other computers, pieces of hardware, or even other software systems. The only criterion is that they must be external to the part of the system being partitioned into use cases. They must supply stimuli to that part of the system, and the must receive outputs from it.
Use cases describe the behavior of the system when one of these actors sends one particular stimulus. This behavior is described textually. It describes the nature of the stimulus that triggers the use case; the inputs from and outputs to other actors, and the behaviors that convert the inputs to the outputs. The text of the use case also usually describes everything that can go wrong during the course of the specified behavior, and what remedial action the system will take.
Use Case Diagrams have low information content.
Use case diagrams don’t tell you very much. They convey the structure of the use cases, but tell you very little about the text within them. As such, they are not particularly interesting documents when they are separated from their textual descriptions. At best the diagrams provide a nice roadmap of relationships so that readers can reconstruct the whole text of a given scenario by tracing through the «uses» and «extends» relationships inserting the text of the former, and modifying the text according to the latter.
Use cases are powerful tools for analysts to use when partitioning the functionality of a system. Use case relationships and the corresponding diagrams help analysts to structure use cases such that their textual descriptions contain a minimum of redundant information; thus making the whole text document much easier to maintain. But use cases are not design tools. They do not specify the structure of the eventual software, nor do they imply the existence of any classes or objects. They are purely functional descriptions written in a formalism that is completely separate from software design.
For more information and details why not check out these sites:
http://pigseye.kennesaw.edu/~dbraun/csis4650/A&D/UML_tutorial/use_case.htm
http://www.agilemodeling.com/artifacts/useCaseDiagram.htm
That's All for this week Folks...
http://developer.motorola.com/
However, team Visionaries once again caught my attention with their Creative and Interactive application user interface design with the help of Flash media. I thought their application is rather innovative with the use of sound and visual effects to enhance the user experince and catches user attention. Just like Prof Gilbert had mention, initially it's not very clear of what is to be expected on the menu bar. But once you start to interact with the application, it started to attract your attention and ultimately makes you want to find out more about it.
And this leads to the day seminar topic on "Interactive Designs".
We touched on the Critical Design Trends that an application designer should look into while trying to work on his/her application development. Prof Gilbert move on to play a very simple game with us to illustrate to us the most important factor to take note of while designing our application for the users. This game required the two players to each take turn to choose a number for a set of numbers between 1 to 9 till either side got a total of 15 from the addition of the numbers each pick. The class take quite awhile to figure out how this game should be played and this caused quite a number of confusion among us. Prof Gilbert then came back to explain to us the concept of the same game could be made easier to understand with the introduction of simple symbols like X and O that we are more familiar with the game Tic-Tac-Toe. And this illustration of effective design concept makes all sense to me how much a different it can be when you are able to present your design in an Interactive yet Simple and Attractive to the users.
We also discussed briefly on the Used Case designing concept that can help in the process of system designs. Software Engineering is the key to the effective software system design process. And here is some addition information I have found out about Use Case study to shared with you guys.
An important part of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the facilities for drawing use case diagrams.
Use cases are used during the analysis phase of a project to identify and partition system functionality. They separate the system into actors and use cases.
Actors represent roles that can are played by users of the system. Those users can be humans, other computers, pieces of hardware, or even other software systems. The only criterion is that they must be external to the part of the system being partitioned into use cases. They must supply stimuli to that part of the system, and the must receive outputs from it.
Use cases describe the behavior of the system when one of these actors sends one particular stimulus. This behavior is described textually. It describes the nature of the stimulus that triggers the use case; the inputs from and outputs to other actors, and the behaviors that convert the inputs to the outputs. The text of the use case also usually describes everything that can go wrong during the course of the specified behavior, and what remedial action the system will take.
Use Case Diagrams have low information content.
Use case diagrams don’t tell you very much. They convey the structure of the use cases, but tell you very little about the text within them. As such, they are not particularly interesting documents when they are separated from their textual descriptions. At best the diagrams provide a nice roadmap of relationships so that readers can reconstruct the whole text of a given scenario by tracing through the «uses» and «extends» relationships inserting the text of the former, and modifying the text according to the latter.
Use cases are powerful tools for analysts to use when partitioning the functionality of a system. Use case relationships and the corresponding diagrams help analysts to structure use cases such that their textual descriptions contain a minimum of redundant information; thus making the whole text document much easier to maintain. But use cases are not design tools. They do not specify the structure of the eventual software, nor do they imply the existence of any classes or objects. They are purely functional descriptions written in a formalism that is completely separate from software design.
For more information and details why not check out these sites:
http://pigseye.kennesaw.edu/~dbraun/csis4650/A&D/UML_tutorial/use_case.htm
http://www.agilemodeling.com/artifacts/useCaseDiagram.htm
That's All for this week Folks...
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Lesson 7: Podcasting!!
Yeah.. Its the term break... But why am I still so busy?? Haha..
Okay... Jokes a side.. We had a very interesting seminar last Thursday on something I have been reading on the internet and hearing from people yet I still do not really know what it is about.. Ha.. That is Podcasting!!
So What is Podcasting or Podcast??
Think how a desktop aggregator works. You subscribe to a set of feeds, and then can easily view the new stuff from all of the feeds together, or each feed separately.
Podcasting works the same way, with one exception. Instead of reading the new content on a computer screen, you listen to the new content on an iPod or iPod-like device.Think of your iPod as having a set of subscriptions that are checked regularly for updates. Today there are a limited number of programs available this way. The format used is RSS 2.0 with enclosures.
In the future, radio shows like All Things Considered and Rush Limbaugh will be available in this manner, and perhaps other syndication formats will support enclosures.
For a quick sample of the latest podcasts, check out http://audio.weblogs.com/.
We move on to discuss all about podcasting with Prof Gilbert explaining to us what is podcasting and how is podcasting being use to enhance people's life. We touch on the advantage of podcasting in the company, use to conduct training to it's sales executives as well as conducting meetings. Only then I do see the great potential of podcasting as well as the advantages it bring to us. However, I do have some reservation over its true potential as I felt that since the application is build and free for the people to pick up on their free will to listen to it.. information are still not diseminated if the audience choose not to listen to it just as they choose to delect or not read their e-mails.
We also discuss about the potential of podcasting to be use in the delievering lectures in the university. Hence, podcasting could be a disruptive technology in education systems.
Via podcasting, instruction can be packaged to take advantage of the small size and portability of devices like the iPod. As long as instruction is designed with clear performance objectives in mind this could be an incredible tool to put in the hands of educators.
Is podcasting a disruptive tecnology for education? It may be too soon to tell. But there seems to be real interest in this technology in education with the potential benefits of podcasting that can be offer in education:
· for distance learning
· to facilitate self-paced learning
· for remediation of slower learners
· to allow faculty to offer advanced and or highly motivated learners extra content
· for helping students with reading and/or other learning disabilities
· for multi-lingual education
· to provide the ability for educators to feature guest speakers from remote locations
· to allow guest speakers the ability to present once to many sections and classes
· to allow educators to escape the tedium of lecturing
· to offer a richer learning environment
Could these factors be the driver for the podcasting as a disruptive technology in Education arena? Its not too long before we will know the answer soon.
Anyway, I still felt podcasting do have its great use in many way that can enhance our digital life. And yes, we move on to discuss about how to go about creating our very own podcast which I am very much interested to learn more about it as one day I would like to do one of my own.. haha.
While I am searching through the internet for training aids, I came across this dope shit of information to help me in my learning process step by step.
Here is the link: http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/05/engadget-podcast-001-10-05-2004-how-to-podcasting-get/
Here is a snapshot of the equipment you will need and the explaination of the equipment usage in the podcasting process:
Lets see if I am able to get one up before the end of our course of study in April... I will Love to do so...
Other links of interests, check them out dudes: http://www.podcasting-tools.com/
Cheers!!
Okay... Jokes a side.. We had a very interesting seminar last Thursday on something I have been reading on the internet and hearing from people yet I still do not really know what it is about.. Ha.. That is Podcasting!!
So What is Podcasting or Podcast??
Think how a desktop aggregator works. You subscribe to a set of feeds, and then can easily view the new stuff from all of the feeds together, or each feed separately.
Podcasting works the same way, with one exception. Instead of reading the new content on a computer screen, you listen to the new content on an iPod or iPod-like device.Think of your iPod as having a set of subscriptions that are checked regularly for updates. Today there are a limited number of programs available this way. The format used is RSS 2.0 with enclosures.
In the future, radio shows like All Things Considered and Rush Limbaugh will be available in this manner, and perhaps other syndication formats will support enclosures.
For a quick sample of the latest podcasts, check out http://audio.weblogs.com/.
We move on to discuss all about podcasting with Prof Gilbert explaining to us what is podcasting and how is podcasting being use to enhance people's life. We touch on the advantage of podcasting in the company, use to conduct training to it's sales executives as well as conducting meetings. Only then I do see the great potential of podcasting as well as the advantages it bring to us. However, I do have some reservation over its true potential as I felt that since the application is build and free for the people to pick up on their free will to listen to it.. information are still not diseminated if the audience choose not to listen to it just as they choose to delect or not read their e-mails.
We also discuss about the potential of podcasting to be use in the delievering lectures in the university. Hence, podcasting could be a disruptive technology in education systems.
Via podcasting, instruction can be packaged to take advantage of the small size and portability of devices like the iPod. As long as instruction is designed with clear performance objectives in mind this could be an incredible tool to put in the hands of educators.
Is podcasting a disruptive tecnology for education? It may be too soon to tell. But there seems to be real interest in this technology in education with the potential benefits of podcasting that can be offer in education:
· for distance learning
· to facilitate self-paced learning
· for remediation of slower learners
· to allow faculty to offer advanced and or highly motivated learners extra content
· for helping students with reading and/or other learning disabilities
· for multi-lingual education
· to provide the ability for educators to feature guest speakers from remote locations
· to allow guest speakers the ability to present once to many sections and classes
· to allow educators to escape the tedium of lecturing
· to offer a richer learning environment
Could these factors be the driver for the podcasting as a disruptive technology in Education arena? Its not too long before we will know the answer soon.
Anyway, I still felt podcasting do have its great use in many way that can enhance our digital life. And yes, we move on to discuss about how to go about creating our very own podcast which I am very much interested to learn more about it as one day I would like to do one of my own.. haha.
While I am searching through the internet for training aids, I came across this dope shit of information to help me in my learning process step by step.
Here is the link: http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/05/engadget-podcast-001-10-05-2004-how-to-podcasting-get/
Here is a snapshot of the equipment you will need and the explaination of the equipment usage in the podcasting process:
Lets see if I am able to get one up before the end of our course of study in April... I will Love to do so...
Other links of interests, check them out dudes: http://www.podcasting-tools.com/
Cheers!!
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Lesson 6: Value From Business Case Studies
First of all let me wish everyone A Happy Chinese New Year!!
Its been a extremely busy week for me over the weekend helping out with the festive work to be done at home on last Friday and Saturday before the Chinese New Year arrive on Sunday. The week have been great visiting and catching up with my relatives and friends, and of course not forgetting to collect my Red packets and eating all the nice cookies.. Haha...
So actually I did not really have the time for the week to update my fair share of the seminar discussion we had last Thursday. However, I did received an email on last Friday from Xinjie of my seminar class to invite me to join their team in the Citibank Business Case Study competiton which Prof Gilbert have encourage us to join.
I guess its a honor to be invited to join the group in the competition which I did have an intention to join initially when I took up this course. However, because of my present workload and FYP, I have decided to give it a miss till Xinjie invitation came. She convinced me to join the team in the competition which I could not reject her as she is really determined to give this competition a GO.
However, when I read up the details of the competition and realise that the deadline for first submission for the Case Study is this coming Friday, I thought I may have to disappoint Xinjie with the minimum effort I could offer to help the team as this is really a busy week with the Chinese New Year over the weekend.
Here I am trying to contribute my part in the Case Study while I take a short break to update this blog as I have yet to do so for the week before I head back to the Case Study and round up my part so that I can send over to Xinjie later.....
okay... So much for this week as I apologize for the lack of content... but I promise I will be back next week...
Cheers!!
Its been a extremely busy week for me over the weekend helping out with the festive work to be done at home on last Friday and Saturday before the Chinese New Year arrive on Sunday. The week have been great visiting and catching up with my relatives and friends, and of course not forgetting to collect my Red packets and eating all the nice cookies.. Haha...
So actually I did not really have the time for the week to update my fair share of the seminar discussion we had last Thursday. However, I did received an email on last Friday from Xinjie of my seminar class to invite me to join their team in the Citibank Business Case Study competiton which Prof Gilbert have encourage us to join.
I guess its a honor to be invited to join the group in the competition which I did have an intention to join initially when I took up this course. However, because of my present workload and FYP, I have decided to give it a miss till Xinjie invitation came. She convinced me to join the team in the competition which I could not reject her as she is really determined to give this competition a GO.
However, when I read up the details of the competition and realise that the deadline for first submission for the Case Study is this coming Friday, I thought I may have to disappoint Xinjie with the minimum effort I could offer to help the team as this is really a busy week with the Chinese New Year over the weekend.
Here I am trying to contribute my part in the Case Study while I take a short break to update this blog as I have yet to do so for the week before I head back to the Case Study and round up my part so that I can send over to Xinjie later.....
okay... So much for this week as I apologize for the lack of content... but I promise I will be back next week...
Cheers!!
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Lesson 5: Governing the Freedom Economy
An interesting kick off for this week seminar, my team was the first to be called upon for the presentation of our team's Elevator Pitch. Yes, all groups presented their Elevator Pitch for the day's opening.
I guess we were all quite excited to see what have our friends each had came out with their Elevator Pitch. Not suprisingly, many of us came out with really different version of our own Elevator Pitch. And some were really interesting and caught my attention during the seminar. I would have to say, A+ team's Elevator pitch was rather interactive with the help of some flash animations and description. But the last Team Visionaries's Elevator Pitch, I thought was really creative and entertaining to watch. As I felt is really more attention drawing to have it captured live with actors acting it out like a short movie clip.
Seriously speaking, I really felt the rest of the teams did much better than what my team have done in terms of creativity and ability to caption audiences attention. However, with the discussion after every team had presented for the class, no one method is the best but a combination of some together will bring out the best. Hence, all of us have to go back and improve on our Elevator Pitch before we submit again into YouTude for our little competition Prof Gilbert have suggested.
Okay back to the lesson proper for this week. The disccussion topic for the week was Governing the Freedom Economy: do we need new rules? It actually means how our daily norms, rules, laws, technology and everything else interacts over time and changes.
How have the norms become rules with the changes in technologies, or rather how have the technologies changes our daily norms into rules and laws. And as I was browsing the internet for my daily updates in the telecomunication news in Telecoms.com . This article chain my thoughts of what we had discussed yestheday in class.
Here is the News: Cellphone Fines for Pedestrians
New York State Senator Carl Kruger has proposed controversial legislation which could see mobile phone users slapped with a $100 fine for crossing a street whilst using their device.
Kruger's bill would also apply to any other kind of personal electronic device that the user could find themselves immersed in using such as portable gaming systems and iPods.
Cellphone users would have to take a break for a few seconds whilst they cross the street to avoid a fine.
Some have called the proposal excessive. A number of US states have already introduced bans on using cellphones whilst driving but not all.
From the end of this month, UK drivers caught chatting on their mobile phone will face bigger fines as tougher fixed penalties come into play.
Culprits found guilty could receive three points on their licence as well as a £60 fine.
I guess we were all quite excited to see what have our friends each had came out with their Elevator Pitch. Not suprisingly, many of us came out with really different version of our own Elevator Pitch. And some were really interesting and caught my attention during the seminar. I would have to say, A+ team's Elevator pitch was rather interactive with the help of some flash animations and description. But the last Team Visionaries's Elevator Pitch, I thought was really creative and entertaining to watch. As I felt is really more attention drawing to have it captured live with actors acting it out like a short movie clip.
Seriously speaking, I really felt the rest of the teams did much better than what my team have done in terms of creativity and ability to caption audiences attention. However, with the discussion after every team had presented for the class, no one method is the best but a combination of some together will bring out the best. Hence, all of us have to go back and improve on our Elevator Pitch before we submit again into YouTude for our little competition Prof Gilbert have suggested.
Okay back to the lesson proper for this week. The disccussion topic for the week was Governing the Freedom Economy: do we need new rules? It actually means how our daily norms, rules, laws, technology and everything else interacts over time and changes.
How have the norms become rules with the changes in technologies, or rather how have the technologies changes our daily norms into rules and laws. And as I was browsing the internet for my daily updates in the telecomunication news in Telecoms.com . This article chain my thoughts of what we had discussed yestheday in class.
Here is the News: Cellphone Fines for Pedestrians
New York State Senator Carl Kruger has proposed controversial legislation which could see mobile phone users slapped with a $100 fine for crossing a street whilst using their device.
Kruger's bill would also apply to any other kind of personal electronic device that the user could find themselves immersed in using such as portable gaming systems and iPods.
Cellphone users would have to take a break for a few seconds whilst they cross the street to avoid a fine.
Some have called the proposal excessive. A number of US states have already introduced bans on using cellphones whilst driving but not all.
From the end of this month, UK drivers caught chatting on their mobile phone will face bigger fines as tougher fixed penalties come into play.
Culprits found guilty could receive three points on their licence as well as a £60 fine.
Truly reflects the discussion we had, the change in technology, the advance in technology changes our daily norms. Where once these behaviour was thought as norms was now pass down with Rules and Laws to governise our freedom in technologies usage.
We gained something but yet have to lose something in the end... That's so Sad to say... I hope this "Fine" city i am living in will not have to go to this extend in the above mention "News" one day in the near future.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Lesson 4: Business Models
I am just back from school done with our group Elevator pitch video for Thursday presentation again. Arghhhh..... We really had a hard time from last week till today trying to get the Elevator moving.
We spend some time on last friday trying to figure out how to go about designing it and getting it done. We search on the internet for examples and view a few before trying to brainstorm our very own Elevator pitch. Today we spend like another 3 hours plus to integrate all our materials we have done before hand into our very first Elevator pitch. But to our horror in the very last minute when we tried to convert the Powerpoint file we have came out with into a video file, an error occurs in the converted file format.
Okay.. Okay... we will think of a way to solve this problem before Thursday presentation, anyone with any solution do drop me a comment. Thanks.
Last Thursday, our session kick off with a series of presentations from different groups on the JBP language system problem. I was rather suprise by the solution post by the team offering the bar code system which have never come across my mind for this project on my part. I thought that was rather interesting and fresh idea as compare to the rest of our ideas which very much evolve around the mobile handsets and operator technology.
I think the ideas of getting all the teams to present their different ideas and summerising them up for discussion was very meaningful and actually demostrate the idea of "Wisdom of Crowds" we had learnt in the earlier seminar. As we try to learn from each other of our very own ideas and try to integrate them together into our system to form a better and more impressive system for the JBP problem.
However, the actually topic for this seminar of the day was 'Business Models'. We discussed the Commerce Spaces between the Comsumers and the Businesses with the role of the Government. We also touch on the essentials of Business Model Elements. The first and most interesting value of all 8 mention was the 'Customer Value'.
I guess from day one of this module started in week 1, all the topics that we have covered and discussed could not escape the issue around 'Customer Value'. From the day one Disruptive Technologies we have been talking about how these emerging technologies could help the service providers to increase the customer's valua. To the Starhub case study also evolved around bundling services from Starhub as a new entrance to capture market share with incresing customer's valua from their services. And today in the JBP systems presented are also about how our new systems are all going to increase customer's valua. Therefore, to really create a good business model that would help generate profit for the organisation, the element on 'Customer Valua' should be carefully look into.
However, the highlight of the day that wake everybody up from the longest seminar we had so far was really our project explaination from Prof. Gilbert. The "Elevator Pitch"........ What is that??? Question marks form within most of our minds in the room. This was the first time I heard of this new term as Prof. Gilbert went on to explain to all of us how this term came about from the...... Sillicon Valley... Haha... That is interesting.
For these who are not sure about what is an 'Elevator Pitch"? Worry not, here is the help:
What is an "Elevator Pitch"?
An "Elevator Pitch" is a concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced description about your company that your mother should be able to understand in the time it would take to ride up an elevator.
What an "Elevator Pitch" is not:
It is not a "sales pitch." Don't get caught up in using the entire pitch to tell the Investor how great your product or service is. The Investor is "buying" the business, not the product. Tell him/her how you will run the business.
Creating the "Elevator Pitch"
Six questions your "Elevator Pitch" must answer:
1. What is your product or service?Briefly describe what it is you sell. Do not go into excruciating detail.
2. Who is your market?Briefly discuss who you are selling the product or service to. What industry is it? How large of a market do they represent?
3. What is your revenue model?More simply, how do you expect to make money?
4. Who is behind the company?"Bet on the jockey, not the horse" is a familiar saying among Investors. Tell them a little about you and your team's background and achievements. If you have a strong advisory board, tell them who they are and what they have accomplished.
5. Who is your competition?Don't have any? Think again. Briefly discuss who they are and what they have accomplished. Successful competition is an advantage-they are proof your business model and/or concept work.
6. What is your competitive advantage? Simply being in an industry with successful competitors is not enough. You need to effectively communicate how your company is different and why you have an advantage over the competition. A better distribution channel? Key partners? Proprietary technology?
What your "Elevator Pitch" must contain:
1. A "hook" Open your pitch by getting the Investor's attention with a "hook." A statement or question that piques their interest to want to hear more.
2. About 150-225 words Your pitch should go no longer than 60 seconds.
3. Passion Investors expect energy and dedication from entrepreneurs.
4. A request At the end of your pitch, you must ask for something. Do you want their business card, to schedule a full presentation, to ask for a referral?
Want to learn more and read up more information? Here is the link:
http://www.businessknowhow.com/money/elevator.htm
Business Know How website is an very informative website to learn some business basic if you are some newbies like me learning more about the business matters.
After the short discussion on our project with Prof Gilbert as time is running out. Everybody left the room pondering what is going to come up next in our next seminar... including me... I am waiting...............
We spend some time on last friday trying to figure out how to go about designing it and getting it done. We search on the internet for examples and view a few before trying to brainstorm our very own Elevator pitch. Today we spend like another 3 hours plus to integrate all our materials we have done before hand into our very first Elevator pitch. But to our horror in the very last minute when we tried to convert the Powerpoint file we have came out with into a video file, an error occurs in the converted file format.
Okay.. Okay... we will think of a way to solve this problem before Thursday presentation, anyone with any solution do drop me a comment. Thanks.
Last Thursday, our session kick off with a series of presentations from different groups on the JBP language system problem. I was rather suprise by the solution post by the team offering the bar code system which have never come across my mind for this project on my part. I thought that was rather interesting and fresh idea as compare to the rest of our ideas which very much evolve around the mobile handsets and operator technology.
I think the ideas of getting all the teams to present their different ideas and summerising them up for discussion was very meaningful and actually demostrate the idea of "Wisdom of Crowds" we had learnt in the earlier seminar. As we try to learn from each other of our very own ideas and try to integrate them together into our system to form a better and more impressive system for the JBP problem.
However, the actually topic for this seminar of the day was 'Business Models'. We discussed the Commerce Spaces between the Comsumers and the Businesses with the role of the Government. We also touch on the essentials of Business Model Elements. The first and most interesting value of all 8 mention was the 'Customer Value'.
I guess from day one of this module started in week 1, all the topics that we have covered and discussed could not escape the issue around 'Customer Value'. From the day one Disruptive Technologies we have been talking about how these emerging technologies could help the service providers to increase the customer's valua. To the Starhub case study also evolved around bundling services from Starhub as a new entrance to capture market share with incresing customer's valua from their services. And today in the JBP systems presented are also about how our new systems are all going to increase customer's valua. Therefore, to really create a good business model that would help generate profit for the organisation, the element on 'Customer Valua' should be carefully look into.
However, the highlight of the day that wake everybody up from the longest seminar we had so far was really our project explaination from Prof. Gilbert. The "Elevator Pitch"........ What is that??? Question marks form within most of our minds in the room. This was the first time I heard of this new term as Prof. Gilbert went on to explain to all of us how this term came about from the...... Sillicon Valley... Haha... That is interesting.
For these who are not sure about what is an 'Elevator Pitch"? Worry not, here is the help:
What is an "Elevator Pitch"?
An "Elevator Pitch" is a concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced description about your company that your mother should be able to understand in the time it would take to ride up an elevator.
What an "Elevator Pitch" is not:
It is not a "sales pitch." Don't get caught up in using the entire pitch to tell the Investor how great your product or service is. The Investor is "buying" the business, not the product. Tell him/her how you will run the business.
Creating the "Elevator Pitch"
Six questions your "Elevator Pitch" must answer:
1. What is your product or service?Briefly describe what it is you sell. Do not go into excruciating detail.
2. Who is your market?Briefly discuss who you are selling the product or service to. What industry is it? How large of a market do they represent?
3. What is your revenue model?More simply, how do you expect to make money?
4. Who is behind the company?"Bet on the jockey, not the horse" is a familiar saying among Investors. Tell them a little about you and your team's background and achievements. If you have a strong advisory board, tell them who they are and what they have accomplished.
5. Who is your competition?Don't have any? Think again. Briefly discuss who they are and what they have accomplished. Successful competition is an advantage-they are proof your business model and/or concept work.
6. What is your competitive advantage? Simply being in an industry with successful competitors is not enough. You need to effectively communicate how your company is different and why you have an advantage over the competition. A better distribution channel? Key partners? Proprietary technology?
What your "Elevator Pitch" must contain:
1. A "hook" Open your pitch by getting the Investor's attention with a "hook." A statement or question that piques their interest to want to hear more.
2. About 150-225 words Your pitch should go no longer than 60 seconds.
3. Passion Investors expect energy and dedication from entrepreneurs.
4. A request At the end of your pitch, you must ask for something. Do you want their business card, to schedule a full presentation, to ask for a referral?
Want to learn more and read up more information? Here is the link:
http://www.businessknowhow.com/money/elevator.htm
Business Know How website is an very informative website to learn some business basic if you are some newbies like me learning more about the business matters.
After the short discussion on our project with Prof Gilbert as time is running out. Everybody left the room pondering what is going to come up next in our next seminar... including me... I am waiting...............
Monday, January 29, 2007
Lesson 3: The Wisdom of Crowds
It is time of the week again for me to post my my 2-cents worth of my point of views from the seminar we had last Thursday. It is indeed a extremely meaningful one for me as I am a person who always like to hear the different side of a story to gain more insights before even committing on my ideas or decisions.
So which is better, an individual Smart Alex? Or the Wisdom of Crowds?
I guess this is also a question I have tried to answer before, but I couldn't.... Haha... Even after this discussion with the class and coming home to "reseach" further into this topic in the web. I am still unable to make a stand on really an individual is better or actually the wisdom of the mass crowds stand out. I still feel it is rather subjective to conclude on it but I definately gain lots of insights into this question. And perhaps able to try and deploy the teory learnt here and decide which method to use the next time round when I face a problem.
Alright, just a short recap on what we have learnt and discussed in class:
Many cognitive, coordination and cooperation problems are best solved by canvassing groups (the larger the better) of reasonably informed, unbiased, engaged people. The group's answer is almost invariably much better than any individual expert's answer, even better than the best answer of the experts in the group.
Agreed? Or not agreed? For those unfamiliar with the concept of the Wisdom of Crowds, here is just what you need to catch up with us:
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/
This is the link to the writer of the book, James Surowiecki, on 'The Wisdom of Crowds', as well as information about the contents of the book. Anyone out there who wish to read up more on this interesting topic can check out this website.
While "reseaching" in the web, I came across another blogger by the name 'Dave Pollard' blog article on the Wisdom of Crowds. This guy is a real season blogger who's blog articles and posts running deep under my screen. I guess this is really an interesting blog to read as his posts are all his environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays over a wide spectrum of issues.
He himself after reading the Wisdom of Crowds, have been bouncing ideas on how to implement the principles in James Surowiecki's book The Wisdom of Crowds off a variety of people in the public and private spheres.
And here is what he had came out with his bouncing ideas: The 'Collective Wisdom' Model
The Value Proposition for this model is compelling:
Tapping into the Wisdom of Crowds with a disciplined process will reduce or eliminate the need for (and cost of) 'expert' consultants, academics and focus groups, while producing better decisions and solutions than those experts can offer.
If you would like to find out more information on this model of Collective Wisdom to solve your problem, you can read up his ideas in his blog here:
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/11/15.html
Okay, so much about the Wisdom of Crowds, now back to what I have done today with my team AMG for our assignment for this thursday presentation on the problem exist in the Jurong Bird Park.
I guess the wonder of techologies today are to help we human beings to implement what was then thought as impossible in the past. Hence, whole lots of applications are available in our mind for us to implement them as to serve our fellow human beings better. And here my team have came out with a great idea to help solve the problem of communicating with the visitors in the Jurong Bird Park as well as providing them with the best of information at their finger tips.
But wait...... ...... it is too early to review more on what is up in our proposal. Just hang on a little, we will review in our presentation on this coming Thursday.........
Cheers!!
So which is better, an individual Smart Alex? Or the Wisdom of Crowds?
I guess this is also a question I have tried to answer before, but I couldn't.... Haha... Even after this discussion with the class and coming home to "reseach" further into this topic in the web. I am still unable to make a stand on really an individual is better or actually the wisdom of the mass crowds stand out. I still feel it is rather subjective to conclude on it but I definately gain lots of insights into this question. And perhaps able to try and deploy the teory learnt here and decide which method to use the next time round when I face a problem.
Alright, just a short recap on what we have learnt and discussed in class:
Many cognitive, coordination and cooperation problems are best solved by canvassing groups (the larger the better) of reasonably informed, unbiased, engaged people. The group's answer is almost invariably much better than any individual expert's answer, even better than the best answer of the experts in the group.
Agreed? Or not agreed? For those unfamiliar with the concept of the Wisdom of Crowds, here is just what you need to catch up with us:
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/
This is the link to the writer of the book, James Surowiecki, on 'The Wisdom of Crowds', as well as information about the contents of the book. Anyone out there who wish to read up more on this interesting topic can check out this website.
While "reseaching" in the web, I came across another blogger by the name 'Dave Pollard' blog article on the Wisdom of Crowds. This guy is a real season blogger who's blog articles and posts running deep under my screen. I guess this is really an interesting blog to read as his posts are all his environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays over a wide spectrum of issues.
He himself after reading the Wisdom of Crowds, have been bouncing ideas on how to implement the principles in James Surowiecki's book The Wisdom of Crowds off a variety of people in the public and private spheres.
And here is what he had came out with his bouncing ideas: The 'Collective Wisdom' Model
The Value Proposition for this model is compelling:Tapping into the Wisdom of Crowds with a disciplined process will reduce or eliminate the need for (and cost of) 'expert' consultants, academics and focus groups, while producing better decisions and solutions than those experts can offer.
If you would like to find out more information on this model of Collective Wisdom to solve your problem, you can read up his ideas in his blog here:
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/11/15.html
Okay, so much about the Wisdom of Crowds, now back to what I have done today with my team AMG for our assignment for this thursday presentation on the problem exist in the Jurong Bird Park.
I guess the wonder of techologies today are to help we human beings to implement what was then thought as impossible in the past. Hence, whole lots of applications are available in our mind for us to implement them as to serve our fellow human beings better. And here my team have came out with a great idea to help solve the problem of communicating with the visitors in the Jurong Bird Park as well as providing them with the best of information at their finger tips.
But wait...... ...... it is too early to review more on what is up in our proposal. Just hang on a little, we will review in our presentation on this coming Thursday.........
Cheers!!
Monday, January 22, 2007
Lesson 2: Technology Infrastructure
Got my first and second comments for my blog from Prof Gilbert. I would like to thank him for his encouragement on my interest in designs. I guess what Prof Gilbert did mention in the discussion was really true. This blog for this module have add in more interactivities between the students and the Professor. Hence allow us to get to know more about each other and share information across as well. Enjoy reading his comments and awaiting more to pour in soon.
Met up last thurday with my team mates for my project to discuss on the Starhub case study as well as prepare for the presentation in class on the questions posted by Prof Gilbert.
This is the first assignment for our MB362 module. And its quite an interesting one for us to work on since its on Starhub, a telecomunication company all of us are pretty much known of in Singapore. We had our group discussion and exchanged our ideas on the case study article as well as prepare our answers to the questions in a Powerpoint slides for our presentation later in the day.
My team was called upon the first team to do the presentation, most of the teams came up with quite similar answers. Hence, the are also pointers exchanged between the different groups and Prof Gilbert. We touch on the major issue of new entrance in the telecommunication market in Singapore, namely MobileOne and followed by Starhub. We also discussion on the impact of the new entrance to the market as well as the roles they play in this market.
One interesting topic during the discussion mention was the goals of the firm. And all the team stated that the important goal of Starhub was to establish itself as the leader of the market over time. However, Prof Gilbert quickly point out the point if it is always necessary and true that every player that enters a market should try to be the leader of its field.
And guess the answer is NOT always true.
We should actually look into different aspect of the business and evaluated if the main objective of the emerging companies should be the leaders. Just like company taking debts to finance their investment activities. On the general view of debts are always bad, however if the companies are able to manage their debts well, it may turn out to be the source to generate profits and revenues.
We also touch on the bundlering of services provided to gain market shares by starhub. Value added services as well as backend capability to provide customers with single billing services. Convergence of services are the next level of playing field in such a highly penetrated and mature market in Singapore. Actually not to increase market shares but more to retain customer base in this fiercely competitive market.
And in search of the next generation of mobile phones and features I would like to have in my pocket is the ability in the mobile device to share information. Yes.. yes... handphone features of today have gone a long way since the beginning, however with the ability to connect to internet and bluetooth connectivity between handsets are still limited to data rate as well as distance between nodes.
How I wish I am able to set up networks between my peers in the mobile world. With all of us connected in a peer-to-peer networking environment that allows each and everyone of us to transfer information even if we are distance apart. Hopefully this can be seen sometime soon with the introduction of 3.5G HSDPA network as well as the coming 4G intelligent broadband mobile network.
Coming back to the topic of the last seminar, Technology Infrastructure. Learning about the grow of technologies along the way as well as the backbone infrastructure network that enable all this wonderful services available today. Rekindle back to the good old days of the snail mail of sending information across the island and the world, I could not held but really appreciated these works that are done by the innovators and creators of all these wonderful technologies.
We move on to a simple lab session on creating a simple HTML file that can be view in the browser on our laptops in the seminar room. And I really appreciated Prof Gilbert effort to help all of us to gain access to the laptops in the seminar room this time round as we are not being able to log on in the previous session. He really ensure that we are able to really get a feel of what we are studying with real application execises and discussions to illustrate his course materials. Something I guess do help us to understand better on this module as compare to traditional way of delivering in a lecture-tutorial way.
Once again looking forward to this thursday seminar on Infrastructure for Mobile Commerce.
Cheers!!
Met up last thurday with my team mates for my project to discuss on the Starhub case study as well as prepare for the presentation in class on the questions posted by Prof Gilbert.
This is the first assignment for our MB362 module. And its quite an interesting one for us to work on since its on Starhub, a telecomunication company all of us are pretty much known of in Singapore. We had our group discussion and exchanged our ideas on the case study article as well as prepare our answers to the questions in a Powerpoint slides for our presentation later in the day.
My team was called upon the first team to do the presentation, most of the teams came up with quite similar answers. Hence, the are also pointers exchanged between the different groups and Prof Gilbert. We touch on the major issue of new entrance in the telecommunication market in Singapore, namely MobileOne and followed by Starhub. We also discussion on the impact of the new entrance to the market as well as the roles they play in this market.
One interesting topic during the discussion mention was the goals of the firm. And all the team stated that the important goal of Starhub was to establish itself as the leader of the market over time. However, Prof Gilbert quickly point out the point if it is always necessary and true that every player that enters a market should try to be the leader of its field.
And guess the answer is NOT always true.
We should actually look into different aspect of the business and evaluated if the main objective of the emerging companies should be the leaders. Just like company taking debts to finance their investment activities. On the general view of debts are always bad, however if the companies are able to manage their debts well, it may turn out to be the source to generate profits and revenues.
We also touch on the bundlering of services provided to gain market shares by starhub. Value added services as well as backend capability to provide customers with single billing services. Convergence of services are the next level of playing field in such a highly penetrated and mature market in Singapore. Actually not to increase market shares but more to retain customer base in this fiercely competitive market.
And in search of the next generation of mobile phones and features I would like to have in my pocket is the ability in the mobile device to share information. Yes.. yes... handphone features of today have gone a long way since the beginning, however with the ability to connect to internet and bluetooth connectivity between handsets are still limited to data rate as well as distance between nodes.
How I wish I am able to set up networks between my peers in the mobile world. With all of us connected in a peer-to-peer networking environment that allows each and everyone of us to transfer information even if we are distance apart. Hopefully this can be seen sometime soon with the introduction of 3.5G HSDPA network as well as the coming 4G intelligent broadband mobile network.
Coming back to the topic of the last seminar, Technology Infrastructure. Learning about the grow of technologies along the way as well as the backbone infrastructure network that enable all this wonderful services available today. Rekindle back to the good old days of the snail mail of sending information across the island and the world, I could not held but really appreciated these works that are done by the innovators and creators of all these wonderful technologies.
We move on to a simple lab session on creating a simple HTML file that can be view in the browser on our laptops in the seminar room. And I really appreciated Prof Gilbert effort to help all of us to gain access to the laptops in the seminar room this time round as we are not being able to log on in the previous session. He really ensure that we are able to really get a feel of what we are studying with real application execises and discussions to illustrate his course materials. Something I guess do help us to understand better on this module as compare to traditional way of delivering in a lecture-tutorial way.
Once again looking forward to this thursday seminar on Infrastructure for Mobile Commerce.
Cheers!!
Monday, January 15, 2007
Interesting Article: Gartner warns operators to stay focused
Just read about this article from Telecoms.com website about research firm Gartner warning operators to stay forcus on their core business rather then distracted through efforts to transform into media companies.
Gartner warned that more than half of these new approaches will fail because many carriers only have a limited knowledge of their existing subscriber base and often do not understand the new business models.
Maybe you guys will be interested to read more about it. Here is the link of the article:
http://www.telecoms.com/itmgcontent/tcoms/news/articles/20017397472.html
Cheers!
Gartner warned that more than half of these new approaches will fail because many carriers only have a limited knowledge of their existing subscriber base and often do not understand the new business models.
Maybe you guys will be interested to read more about it. Here is the link of the article:
http://www.telecoms.com/itmgcontent/tcoms/news/articles/20017397472.html
Cheers!
Lesson 1: Disruptive Technologies in Electronic Commerce
Finally gain much insight to the MB362 module with the first seminar session on last thurday evening. Spend some time in the weekend browsing through the course materials as well as the external links from the course site.
Interesting, interesting... This course is really quite different from the previous modules I have taken in the past 2 years in NTU. Relating to some work I did during my attachment, the discussion on the disruptive technologies really trigger my excitement on the future of the info-communication world.
Really impressed with the power of the electronic communication system have brought to the changes in our life, guess that the reason why I decided to take up computer engineering many years back. However, having worked in a MNC like Motorola and learning on the information shared by Prof Gilbert last thurday. Tells me that the world do not just evolve around on technology alone but brings about many impact on businesses and of course our life.
On the discussion of the disruption, I was really taken aback on the personalisation point mention. I was wondering that its was so wonderful to tap on these information that was collected to actually build on it to provide personalise level of services is really great. However, on the down side of it was really losing our privacy when you know that somebody is actually monitoring your personal life activities closely.
During my attachment, I was given the opportunities to work on some emerging technologies and actually study into the impact or possible impact these technologies may have on the existing network. And the possible emerging disruptive giant is Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, WiMAX. A standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL.
These high speed internet access technologg may be the solution to the cellular network to enable mobile devices with the capabilities to provide m-commerce activities as well as bandwidth hungry entertain applications.
There is also these book that I would like to recommand you guys for reading interest in how we can manage emerging technologies. It is titled 'Wharton on Managing Emerging Technologies' by George S. Day and Paul J. H. Schoemaker.
Emerging technologies such as the Internet and biotechnology have the potential to create new industries and transform existing ones. Incumbent firms, despite their superior resources, often lose out to smaller rivals in developing emerging technologies. Why do these incumbents have so much difficulty with disruptive technologies? How can they anticipate and overcome their handicaps?
Wharton on Managing Emerging Technologies presents insights, tools, and frameworks from leading busi-ness thinkers based on the research of Wharton's Emerging Technologies Management Research Program. The editors contend that managing emerging technologies represents a "different game," requiring a different set of management skills, frameworks, and strategies than those used by established firms to manage existing technologies.
I find the contend in these book are really very interesting and informative. It really helps me to understand more in the changes in the technologies areana and assessing future markets for new technologies by assessing the market rate of diffusion for example.
Hope you guys find this book useful to bring in some new thoughts. For now, I am awaiting my group discussion on our group project for some real interesting ideas to be born.
Cheers!
Interesting, interesting... This course is really quite different from the previous modules I have taken in the past 2 years in NTU. Relating to some work I did during my attachment, the discussion on the disruptive technologies really trigger my excitement on the future of the info-communication world.
Really impressed with the power of the electronic communication system have brought to the changes in our life, guess that the reason why I decided to take up computer engineering many years back. However, having worked in a MNC like Motorola and learning on the information shared by Prof Gilbert last thurday. Tells me that the world do not just evolve around on technology alone but brings about many impact on businesses and of course our life.
On the discussion of the disruption, I was really taken aback on the personalisation point mention. I was wondering that its was so wonderful to tap on these information that was collected to actually build on it to provide personalise level of services is really great. However, on the down side of it was really losing our privacy when you know that somebody is actually monitoring your personal life activities closely.
During my attachment, I was given the opportunities to work on some emerging technologies and actually study into the impact or possible impact these technologies may have on the existing network. And the possible emerging disruptive giant is Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, WiMAX. A standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL.
These high speed internet access technologg may be the solution to the cellular network to enable mobile devices with the capabilities to provide m-commerce activities as well as bandwidth hungry entertain applications.
There is also these book that I would like to recommand you guys for reading interest in how we can manage emerging technologies. It is titled 'Wharton on Managing Emerging Technologies' by George S. Day and Paul J. H. Schoemaker.
Emerging technologies such as the Internet and biotechnology have the potential to create new industries and transform existing ones. Incumbent firms, despite their superior resources, often lose out to smaller rivals in developing emerging technologies. Why do these incumbents have so much difficulty with disruptive technologies? How can they anticipate and overcome their handicaps?
Wharton on Managing Emerging Technologies presents insights, tools, and frameworks from leading busi-ness thinkers based on the research of Wharton's Emerging Technologies Management Research Program. The editors contend that managing emerging technologies represents a "different game," requiring a different set of management skills, frameworks, and strategies than those used by established firms to manage existing technologies.
I find the contend in these book are really very interesting and informative. It really helps me to understand more in the changes in the technologies areana and assessing future markets for new technologies by assessing the market rate of diffusion for example.
Hope you guys find this book useful to bring in some new thoughts. For now, I am awaiting my group discussion on our group project for some real interesting ideas to be born.
Cheers!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Lesson 0: I just love the challenges and wonders in Technologies!
As I was browsing through the lists of General Electives modules that I am suppose to clear for my GE requirement for my final year of studies in NTU, MB362 simply just caught my attention to be my first choice in my list of selection.
I was attached to Motorola Electronics in the last semester for my Industrial Attachment. The role I played in my team during my attachment was a challenging and enriching one. I was attached to the S&E Asia Networks Strategy and Business Development team.
The role I played in the team includes reseach and study of the S&E Asia telecomunication market and well as technologies. Along the way helping to build business models and drive the latest technology products of the Motorola Networks.
Along the way, I truly enjoy my working days in Motorola working with the latest technologies as well as business development projects. Hence, there is no doubt that when I did my module registration, MB362 was the module I had selected for my GE studies.
Hoping to extend and gain more knowledge in these areas of studies with Prof. Gilbert and you guys out there with me on every thurdays in the weeks to follow.
Cheers!
I was attached to Motorola Electronics in the last semester for my Industrial Attachment. The role I played in my team during my attachment was a challenging and enriching one. I was attached to the S&E Asia Networks Strategy and Business Development team.
The role I played in the team includes reseach and study of the S&E Asia telecomunication market and well as technologies. Along the way helping to build business models and drive the latest technology products of the Motorola Networks.
Along the way, I truly enjoy my working days in Motorola working with the latest technologies as well as business development projects. Hence, there is no doubt that when I did my module registration, MB362 was the module I had selected for my GE studies.
Hoping to extend and gain more knowledge in these areas of studies with Prof. Gilbert and you guys out there with me on every thurdays in the weeks to follow.
Cheers!
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