Session 11 Review

The second las week was a great seminar. It was different as we discussed a lot about cyber security. I really have to admit agressing wit Prof. Gilbert Lee on this, cyber security is slowly getting more and more important and will probably be one of the most important jobs in the future as our world seems to grow even more and more dependent on the computer.Today technology keeps advancing beyond our imagination and there are always people able to find loop holes in systems.

It was extremely interactive and we had a small game with Prof Gilber and the rest of the class. He called the game Cyberterror beta. Each group of 2-3 students were handed out envelopes with different instructions and indicating their role in the game. The point of this game was to show us that no matter how much you try and protect your resources and assets there is always a threat and an angle you might be attacked from. Ofcourse it is also so much harder to attack than to defend. I was handed the role of being the terrorist. The other groups formed any of the 5 remaining teams: The Observers, The terrorists, The Banks, The Port, The Travel and The Police teams. In the first half me and my partner in the game decided to go out for even attacks against banks, a port and the police. Each of the other players in the game actually worked within their group to decide what they wanted to protect. And then in the end what we wanted to attack was tallied with what they defended. Our first round offered us 2 successful attacks out of 4.

The second round was a little more interesting where as the terrorists we were given more resources without this knowledge being presented to the other teams. We were asked to leave the class and inside the class the other groups all worked together to form different strategies to protect a more vast range of assets. There was also another twist. The group of observes were really supposed to be moles who were going to relay the information to us via SMS as to what is protected and what we can attack. Unfortunately though the obser(L)ves did not SMS these strategies and we had to use are own ones. We still managed to get a good amount of attacks.

The moral in the end was plain and simple. The resources available to terrorists are difficult to determine and it is so much harder to plan a strategis defence than an attack. There are also loops holes in systems which have to be worked on to prevent leaks.

At the end of the day, everyone of us enjoyed ourselves in this last lecture seminar with Prof Gilbert and the Cyberterror game played. It has indeed been a great learning curve throughout these 11 weeks and wow has time flown by! I have really enjoyed this class and am so glad I took it. I have learnt a lot from really unique methods of teaching and this blog too has given me a lot.

Session 10 Review

The seminar today discussed about Business Planning. At the end of the seminar a short time was also taken to talk about story telling.

During the part about business planning we discussed about how different small businesses like limited liability partnerships (LLP) could be run. Firstly, let me tell you something about small businesses. A small business is one which is independently owned and operated by the owners. In such businesses the control over decisions and operations are done by the owners. Business equity is not publicly traded and business financing is personally guaranteed by the owners. Such types of businesses usually have less than twenty employees. Another condition is if the employee count is below ten, it is termed a micro business.

We also spoke about LLP's which was a very new idea to me. I have been totally unaware of such a possibility in business and such ideas obviously encourage people to go into business wihtout having to worry so much about the cost of failure. Such a type of business hsd elements of both a partnership as well as a corporation. What happens is in a LLP all partners have a form of limited liability which is very similar to that of shareholders in a corporation. All this tends to make LLP's more suitable for businesses where each investor would like to take an active role. (Source: Wikipedia)

We then went about discussing how to actually get banks and potential investors to loan money and invest in your idea. This is the part where the business plan is key. What I found really interested is the part where after going through the financial data investors tend to look at the management team. I actually believe a good team could really be the key into getting a an investor to invest in a business. Most of the times market research and a lot of homework on the product and market will enable us to give a good financial production. This is probably the reason behind people also chasing their idea. But the difference is really in how well people can execute that business idea. All this is down to the team, how qualified and skilled the people are, past achievements in different fields, and in the end the working chemistry between each member of the team. A team full of superstars that cannot get along with one another and are not coherent is never a good team. All this actually reminds of a seminar we had a while back on the power of thinking in a group and individually. I can really relate that seminar to this now.

Next we also had a brief overview as to why businesses fail. I thought incompetence to handle it and inexperience were definitely up there and I was right about that. I believe if the management is competent and with a bit of experience funds can always be generated. Ofcourse there are certain circumstances where this does not occur and the business falls due to lack of funds. Another thing that struck me was also the passion to work for your business. A human mind is such that a lack of interest in anything will always result in that person not wanting to do it. So all in all we went throught the lifecycles of small businesses and I must say it was interesting. Though, I do no I probably will never start my own business, I think it is not about lack of passion and interest for me, but rather in my personality which is more likened to enjoying work in a large multi-national corporation.

Towards the end of the seminar we went through something called storytelling. I am quite sure I do not need to talk about what it is since we have all been told stories and have also told them and will them at many points in time. But what was important from this part of the seminar was the effect a good story teller might have. I believe a good leader is someone who can actually literally tell real or even ficticious stories to motivate, inspire and lead his team. Story telling is also a wonderful way of communicating with different types of people.

I believe story telling is an art and not something that can really be learned that easily. It is the ability to do it better that actually defines and separates out the outstanding individual with leadership and better potential from the rest. Story telling to me is all about creativity.

This was a different type of seminar where Prof Gilbert had a lot more to say than the class but there was still some participation for us. The main reason behind it was actually to get us to realise your reports are due in a week or so and how to go about doing it.

Session 9 Review

The seminar this week was used to discuss about scenario planning. So what exactly is scenario planning?

Scenario planning is a method for learning about the future by understanding the nature and impact of the most uncertain and important driving forces affecting our future. It is a group process that encourages knowledge exchange and development of mutual deeper understanding of central issues important to the future of your business. The goal is to craft a number of diverging stories by extrapolating uncertain and heavily influencing driving forces. The stories together with the work getting there has the dual purpose of increasing the knowledge of the business environment and widen both the receiver's and participant's perception of possible future events. The method is most widely used as a strategic management tool, but this and similar methods have been used for enabling other types of group discussion about a common future. (Source: Well.com)

Now that I have given you a scholarly approach to it above, let me go ahead and explain it in my words. Everyone has a habit of wanting to predict future moves and decisions. The method we actually use is by trying to figure out what is going to happen in that future and how we could react to it. That is probably my most simplistic understanding of scenario planning.

So how do we go about building a scenario? Well, the standard process involves: (Source: Net Based Management.net)

• identify people who will most likely contribute to a wide range of perspectives
• comprehensive interviews/workshops could be done so as to understand all likely future changes that can affect oneself and the company
• cluster the different views together to form a pattern
• from these draw out a list of priorities i.e. the best ideas
• create a rough picture(scenario) of the future based on these priorities
• work further to now detail the impact of this scenario on the company
• mark out early signs/warning signals for each different impact
• moderate, evaluate and review scenarios

This now gives us a rough idea as to what exactly happens in scenario planning. I am going to paste something below I found rather interesting. I pulled off the web and I think its important to read it as I am quite sure at some point in our lives we will have to use the scenario planning tool. (Source: Net Based Management.net) Now that you have an idea about what we discussed I will continue ahead with my thoughts on the seminar.

Some traps to avoid in Scenario Planning:

1) treating scenarios as forecasts
2) constructing scenarios based on too simplistic a difference, such as optimistic and pessimistic
3) failing 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 than for participative learning / 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

Now that you have an idea about what we discussed I will continue ahead with my thoughts on the seminar. Prof Gilbert did explain all the above and said that scenario planning is a common corporate tool and was actually derived from military planning tools and intelligence methods. I think what I realised is most important is not to predict the future but to look at all the different possibilities that can occur. Each and every possibility has the same likelihood of occuring as the other. The aim of the scenario planning is just to keep you prepared for different types of occurances. At the same time it will also teach you and prepare you on how to handle the different future scenarios. Once the whole analysis process is over you get what is known as a scenario matrix. It is short, concise but tells you exactly what you need to know and is extremely useful. I love the idea of such a simple yet powerful table. It makes something difficult to think about and understand seem so simple, yet organised.

		VARIABLE 1
		Outcome 1A | V	Outcome 1B | V
V A R I A B L E 2	Outcome 2A -->	Scenario 1	Scenario 2
	Outcome 2B -->	Scenario 3	Scenario 4

It was really great learning about this tool. I think it really is useful to students, corporation and ofcourse the place it all started: the military. There is loads of information about it on the web and most of it is actually really useful.

The last section of the seminar was about making presentations for a case analysis. It was an optional part of the seminar but the whole class stayed back for it. It was a nice summary on what should really be done and I learnt a lot of new pointers from that presentation. An interesting one was that for a competition it is important to create a presentation targetted at the most influential judge (the consultant) so that he could influence the remainder of the judges. Other interesting points brought forward was also how to break up the time to create the presentation. One thing that Prof Gilbert said that really struck me was dont assist the powerpoint, but let it assist you. I realise now that it is so important that a presentation is made for the purpose of complementing what the presenter is saying and not vice versa. Think that is probably the most common mistake we make and I hope I learn in the future to avoid it.

All in all it was a detailed seminar but never the less filled with ideas. Gosh with so many ideas and details coming through every week I am beginning to worry about the exam! So confused about what can be asked! Just a month to go...oops!!!

New Wireless Profile!

Well just an update on the new 802.11n wireless profile since we touched on the topic earlier. I read this piece of news earlier on the web. Click the title to read the post.

802.11n Draft 2.0 Approved, Will Be Fully Compliant With Final Draft

Session 8 Review

This week involved the proof of concept presentations by different groups. It was a shorter class but none the less involved a great number of ideas and interesting discussions! My team put up a short introduction our project Integrated Information Distribution System for Jurong Bird Park in powerpoint slides.I've decided to use the SlideShare site we had discussed about in one of our earlier seminars to try and share my group's presentation. I do hope it shows fine!



I was really impressed with some of the groups ideas and presentations. Infact one groups (team visionaries) managed to come up with a flash presentation of the interface which was really impressive!

The rest of the seminar was used to discuss about 'Interactive Designs'. Critical Design Trends that should be implemented into applicationwere discussed about. Prof Gilbert showed a very simple game with us to illustrate the importance and power of design. The game requires two players to each take turn to choose a number from a set of numbers between 1 to 9 till either sidehas a summation of 15 from the selected numbers. He then went on to explain to us the concept of the same game could be made easier to understand by using symbols like X and O; and making it Tic-Tac-Toe. This illustration of effective design concept show us how interaction, ease of use and 'visual'-ness aids in a customers experience. It can be applied to almost any design and can help a customer have a better and more enjoyable experience.

This led up to the discussion on Used Case designing concept that helps in the process of system designs. Used cases are used in the analysis stage of a project. They help identify different functions and use what is called a used case diagram. The diagram doesn't actually tell you a whole lot but conveys the idea of the structure of the case. These diagrams are not that interesting and useful when views without the accompanied text, but along with the text form a very organised and structured analytical view of the topic. A Use Case Diagramc contains the following:

1. Actors: An actor represents any entity that performs certain roles in the given system. These different roles are actually the business roles in reality of that system. An actor in a use case diagram interacts with a use case.
2. Use case: A use case is a visual representation of a distinct business functionality in a system. To identify a business process as a use case, it is important to make sure the business process is discrete . Each business function can be thought of as a potential use case.
3. System boundary: A system boundary defines the scope of what a system will be. Every system reach a limit as far as its functionality is concernced. Similarly, use cases must have a limit. A system boundary of a use case diagram basically defines the limits of the system.
   

I hope after learning about used case concept I am able to use them in my project and go on to improve it. I enjoyed this seminar, thought there was not much discussion, because of the new ideas that surfaced in presentations as well as learning new concepts. Looking forward to next week by which time my group has to submit our technology plan.

Session 7 Review

This was the last seminar before our mid sem break. Prof Gilbert was really kind in finishing the class off an hour earlier! I must say though short, the class was interesting. The main discussion was on podcasting and how it can affect business today.

I have been looking forward to this class for a while now. I do subscribe to quite a few podcasts ranging from news to comedy to hobbies and even general knowledge. But this class actually got me thinking about it a little more than just a source of entertainment. I was never really sure about the technical aspects of a podcast. Infact I had always just assumed it had something to do with an ipod because of the similar 'pod' in the names. And well I was right! A podcast is basically a media file that can distributed over the Internet and can be played on mobile devices and computers. This allows them to be extremely portable. At the same time a podcast can be created by almost anyone. As long as you have a mic and the correct software your good to go!

The seminar discussed how podcasts are being used by numerous well known companies both as a means of internal and external information distribution. The great advantage here is that people can choose which podcasts to view and listen to. At the same time they can keep viewing them over and over again once downloaded. I believe podcasts can be used a method by higher management to pass certain messages down to their suboordinates. It would represent a fun element into working life and at the same time prevents potential problems being caused in the form of coordination of times of meetings as well as boredom in meeting process.

At the same time podcasting can be used a medium of education too. It has tremendous potential in such a field. At this moment I am using podcasts to learn Spanish. I must admit I have just started so I am still trying to get the feel of Spanish but podcasts give students and working people so many options. The podcast I am using is "Learn Spanish with Coffee Break Spanish" and can be downloaded using iTunes software. There are many such different podcasts to learn, the video ones ofcourse helping more in terms of science subjects. It helps kids learn and at the same time introduces that new "fun" and "cool" element to studies.

Most of the working crowd actually spends a considerable amount of time on travelling. And while travelling they also spend a considerable time using a portable media device like a laptop or mp3 player to play music or watch movies. This gives podcasts such a huge market to dive into. I really do feel the potential is tremendous. It need not always be in the form of a video podcast but could even be in the form of a simple tag line in an audio podcast. I remember from my National Geographic podcasts, each episode actually begins with a short 15sec ad for AT&T. The point is after a while of subscribing to podcasts users will tend to have the image of such ads permanently in the mind and I think that really helps so much in spreading a brand image.

I had followed a show called One Tree Hill for a while (not very interesting, but thought about something from it), where one of the characters uses a podcast as a method to talk out her feelings and also her life. So it kind of served as a diary for her in terms of her thoughts and feeling towards people, life and all sorts of issues. To me that makes podcasting a way of actually having a digital blog. You can't really see and read it but you can listen to it and still get everything you would from reading it. Just a different point of view I wanted to share.

Anyway back to the main topic. Podcasts can be created using different types of software. Depending on how good and professional you want them to be your costs would vary from $0 to thousands. Yes thats right, you can actually create a podcast for free if you own a mic and can download basic podcasting software. One such free software is Audacity. I have not tried it yet and am not fully aware of how to use it. I am going to try though and see if I can put up a podcast on of my blog entries just as a test and to record a few thoughts. I am not going to list out how you do it because one of my class mates has done an excellent job of it! Here is the link if you want to learn how to create a podcast!
(Thanks for sharing Arinto)

I hope you guys do try podcasting, if not creating atleast listening to some. I've always thought of a podcast as something that can be entertaining, educational as well as upto date! I use them for so many things: news, music, comedy shows, wildlife, philosophy, and languages. Anyways I do hope you try it out and enjoy it... that's all for me as I head into my mid sem break =)

Web 2.0 is catching on everywhere!

This is something interesting I saw in the news. I wanted to share it with you guys.

Mobile talk moves to Web 2.0
With a growing demand for a better browsing experience on our mobiles, there is, according to the industry, demand for Web 2.0 on the go.

Click here to continue reading

Shutdown Day

Have a look at this link. It is a global experiment to see how many people can shut down their computers and not use them for a day. I guess it will go to prove all the critics just how important and necessary they are in our lives and how technology is something we can no longer live without!

Our Elevator Pitch

Here it is folks! Go on and have a look! Oh and also leave some comments on how we could probably improve upon it further.

Session 6 Review

This week was a different type of seminar in our course. We spent the majority of the class doign a case study and analysis. The case was"Wireless Infrastructure for a Regional Food Safety Initiative in Southeast Asia".The case was about using technology to keep a track of livestock and meat lifecycles. This meant everything, from what the animal ate, where it went, where it was bred, and so on. It was an interesting concept that gets you thinking as to why we do not actually have this already, especially considering all the paranoia about bird flu, etc. Anyway some thing to learn here was how to actually speed read and grasp the important points of the study and manage time with the group to answering questions. I must say our group did not get off to the best of starts. We seemed to initially lack the ability to figure out how to go about doing this case analysis. I think we struggled in basically analysing what had to be done and with the time limit that was a bit of a problem. Some how though we did manage to come out with a relatively decent presentation of the interface. Similarly each group presented their ideas and at the end we had a discussion on each ones presentation. Most of us actually used pretty similar ideas and unfortunately none of us made something with use of graphics or visual aids. Great minds at work i guess haha!! What was nice about it was it gave us a feel of what case study tests are like. Infact a lot of companies are actually adopting this method is their recruitment methods. This is known as an 'In-box' exercise.

After all the group discussion was over Prof. Gilbert stressed that it was important to recognize which approach, for example, Value Chain or Process Flow Analysis, Value Systems Analysis, Financial Analysis, is required for the case. He also walked us through what a DHL value chain looks like. It was a different way to look at cases and being an engineering student I have not really been exposed to such things. Its a nice distraction from our technical subjects and in fact might even prove to be one of the most useful.

Last but not least we were briefed about the upcoming (actually it has already begun) Citibank Case Challenge 2007. It is a case study competition between Singapore university teams and organised by Citibank and SMU. I am proud to say I am taking part and in fact have already begun the preliminary round case with my group. It is great exposure especially since my group consists of 2 business and 2 engineering students. I hope we make it far in the competition and hoping to learn as much as possible.

The coming week will be spent editing bits and pieces of our elevator pitch and posting it up on YouTube. I will load it for you guys once it is done. Hope we get the most view ;)

Session 5 Review

Well this week began with each group presenting their elevator pitch videos which will eventually be uploaded on to YouTube. Infact the minute I entered the class you could sense everyones excitement to see what the other groups have done. It was the first time I have actually done something like this and was a great experience learning how to summarise info into such a short presentation and at the same time make heads turn and really generate an interest. Well that is what I would really define an elevator pitch as. To be honest I have never done a flash presentation so even though our presentation was just a powerpoint slide show converted to a flash presentation I did feel a sense of achievement. I must say I was rather impressed with all the groups presentations. Each one had its own unique style and I particularly enjoyed the one cast inside an elevator. Prof Gilbert then proceeded to critique each presentation which helped a lot ofcourse since we all knew where we could improve upon. That has been one of the really refreshing experiences of this class. The fact that the professor and students keep pointing out areas where you can keep improving. I really wish this was spread throughout NTU to gain a more active learning and interactive learning experience. You may even call it a real-life web2.0 experience =). Our presentation is currently undergoing some changes and the minute it is complete I will add a link for you to view it.

The next topic we moved on to discussing was that of Governing the Freedom Economy: do we need new rules? This was really interesting and there can be so many examples to expand upon. It was wonderful to reflect and see how with different technology suddenly norms and rules need to be ammended. And at the same time how it all suddenly also becomes so acceptable to society. It takes you a while to really think: How have our norms and rules changed over the past few years? What is responsible for these changes?

We discussed the examples of the ERP system used in Singapore and how it has changed to a norm in this society. It actually is really wonderful living in this part of the world and being able to see how technology is really affecting everything. Being a foreign student I guess it is a lot easier to appreciate as I do not take it for granted and notice all these changes compared to my home in India. Getting back to the discussion what was interesting to me was how previous norms have actually aided in the formation of new rules. The ERP system would not work as well if the norm of actually following the traffic law did not exist in the first place. This has infact made it a lot easier to introduce a new rule for a new technology.

Another simple example coming to my mind is the use of cell phones while driving vehicles and slowly how many countries seem to be fining people talking on cell phones while driving. I recently read that the mayor of New York is thinking of banning the use of cell phones and music players while crossing the street. It is quite hard to think of these things and I really do hope that some rules never come into existance as they seem to be challenging our norms and more importantly our freedom. Can you imagine taking off your headphones everytime you cross a road? God knows how many blocks it would take us then to complete a song!

Another topic recently come into the light is that of Apple using DRM coding to allow certain songs to be played only on certain players. In fact it has become such an issue that Steve Jobs actually wrote out regarding and explaining the stance of Apple (Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Music). Due to new technologies providing the abilities to exchange songs between countless number of individuals over the globe tagging systems have now become a rule for online retailing music stores to protect the copy rights of the music.

New technologies are giving us the possibility to do probably what was unthinkable a few years ago. This is why moderating and a constant watch on new technologies will eventually give rise to new norm, rules and even freedoms!

I came across this while reading throught my RSS feeds and it just shows you how technology can be used in our world today!
Google is playing an unlikely role in the Iraq war. Its online satellite map of the world, Google Earth, is being used to help people survive sectarian violence in Baghdad. (Source: BBC News)
Click here to carry on reading.

Session 4 Review

This seminar was held in a new IT lab since the previous class had problems with computer confirgurations. The computers were much faster and better and it was a little unfortunate we did not have to use it much!

The seminar started off with group presentations and discussiong on the Jurong Bird Park case study. The study asked us to come up with a single slide presentation on how to avail all the shows at the bird park in many different languages using just a mobile phone. Our group, the Wizards of the Web, came up with a three tier solution. We intended to use the IVRS system for all cell phones to call and listen to shows in different languages, SMPP protocol for cell phones to receive messages with information and Bluetooth A2DP profile to stream sound and additional information to bluetooth capable handphones. Looking at all the presentation I thought we encompassed quite a broad array of ideas. Infact we have decided to broaden the scope a bit and take this on as our project for this class. Other groups too came up with similar based solutions and infact one used a really different approach. They spoke about the registration and receiving of a bar code which has the visitor's mobile number linked to it. This would be used at scanners all over the park so that calls will be made to the registered number as and when the bar code was scanned. After all the groups finished presenting we had a short but detailed discussiong with our professor about the life cycle of the system. After listening to that it suddenyl struck all of us how general and vague our ideas were. The next step and discussion was basically fine tuning the answers and trying to eliminate as many loopholes as possible. One important point our professor pointed out was that none of the groups looked at it from a behavioural point of view. I now realise that is very important and will keep it in mind for future projects and discussions. All in all it was an excellent discussion and I enjoyed the open discussion going around the class which actually uses something from last week: the crowd wisdom concept.

Later on we also had a short discussion on how Google and Amazon get revenue. They mainly used advertisements to earn revenue and what is unique about Google is that its so 'clean'. The dont seem to allow companies to post up big pictures or anything of the sort. Infact its just a few lines on a corner of the page with a link to the website. I think it is fantastic for users since pages are no longer cluttered with millions of pop-ups and ads.

Towards the end of the seminar we briefed about four different models.
1) Business to Consumer
2) Business to Business
3) Consumer to Consumer
4) Consumer to Business

But what I realised was more important than all this was the 'Value proposition'. It is always important that some value is added to a process for the consumer and that is what our projects should also revolve about. We must try and add as much value as we can so as to sell our ideas. I enjoyed this seminar as it involved a lot of ideas and open discussion. It gave us a lot of chances to rebound ideas and discuss as a group. For our next class we have to come up with a 2 minute long elevator pitch selling our idea for the Jurong Bird Park project. Untill next week then...

Session 3 Review

The third seminar is over and it was quite different compared to the first two. For starters we started of the seminar discussing about the collective wisdom/intelligence/decision making of a crowd. Initiailly I was a bit confused with this but later on I realised why Prof. Gilbert introduced the lecture in this manner.

Discussing about the various ideas related to collective intelligence of a crowd was extremely enlightening. Certain scholars and authors believed that the quality of dicussion and decisions made by a group is diminished as compared to when they are made by certain individuals. At the same time a select group believes that under the right circumstances a group makes a decision whose quality can supercede that of even the smartest individual in the group. I think it is a topic that can be debated on and on and we can still have two parties leaving with the same beliefs they came in with. In the end I felt the key to the whole discussion was the term right circumstances. When the circumstances are right, meaning team dynamics, chemistry, diversity, etc. it is possible to get a decision and discussion that is not possible to obtain from one outstanding individual. But at the same time if these circumstances are not so called "right" then it will turn out to be the opposite. Those are my conclusions in the end. It shows me to be a diplomatic person in the end, but I do believe group dynamics, chemistry and diversity are keys elements in making a team successful. Besides that it is also the desire of wanting to work as a group (aka being a team player) rather than look for just ones personal glory. I think it has prevailed for groups throughout the world. Political parties and sports teams never seem to produce the desired results when all the "superstars" of their field are put together in one group. Instead, it always the team or party of lesser knowns that seems to come up with better solutions and managed to out do the "superstar" team. Being a sports minded person I can think of the last world cup in Germany as a perfect example. Brazil with the likes of Ronaldhino, Ronaldo, Kaka, Robinho and many more stars not only underperformed but also produced boring football and did not entertain. Infact only when the team stars were replaced by certain lesser known players did the team begin to gel and show its real potential. Well in the end its like I said, it all boils down to the "right circumstances". Another wonderful example that came up was in regard to the show "Who wants to be a Millionare". It was shown by research that 91% of the times the crowd gets the answer right. That is a phenomenal percentage of getting the answers right considering the fact that the crowd is not even labelled within the judges or even panel of experts/scholars.

All this talk about crowds, discussion and decisions makes me realise the power of diversity. It makes me realise that many different individuals can provide so many different insights to a particular topic than just a single individual. This slowly brought us into the differences in the concept of web1.0 and web2.0. Prof. Gilbert used the example of a paper encyclopedia (web1.0) to the online Wikipedia (web2.0). See one of the reasons paper encyclopedias keep getting outdated year after year is because there is new information out there that has to be put down and that may be a new point of view has been uncovered. But the Wikipedia concept is a lot more efficient. It puts together ideas of every single person who updates it and also can be updated at any time. It is a case of having the right circumstances where web2.0 applications integrate interaction to such an extent that people are more involved and sharing more than ever to keep information upto date. It is such a simple idea but yet so powerful and is really changing the mindsets of many individuals!

Thinking about all this brings a wonderful movie to mind: Goodwill Hunting. In the beginning it shows how a group of great mathematicians and scholars are put together but still take so long to figure out math problems. But a janitor roaming the lobbies of the school actually managed to beat them to the answers. Well besides just watching the movie for this I do recommend watching it, it really is worth the couch, eye strain and popcorn!

Something Technical
Now after we were done discussing the whole crowd concept along wit web 1.0 and 2.0 we moved on to figure out how google got to where it is today. Well basically google seems to provide the right search results every time you use it and it does it even better than any other search engine. Google uses what is known as web spiders to form a so called index of all the content of the web, storing headers, phrases, etc. but most importantly page ranking. It is a smart concept were pages are ranked for the information and it places the page ranked highest as its first results for a search for particular parameters. Not only does this tend to give us pages we always want to read, it also leaves Google as one of the sole search engines able to do this and hence the success and growth of the Google brand name. Anyway, once we place a search Google brings up every phrase, character, heading, etc similar to our search parameters from the index formed by the spider and places the results for us based on the page ranking system. In plain english it sounds like something really easy but its not! Ask the other search engines, they're still trying to figure this one out!


High-level architecture of a standard Web crawler
Source: Wikipedia

Nearing the end of the seminar we discussed something called Second Life. Now I've heard of this before but I was never really aware of the power of it. It is basically a so called "game" in a virtual world that allows people to create their own characters, businesses and do as they please under anonymous names. The brilliance of it is the market research performed as it has a total of 3,131,375 people (Source: Second Life). This actually helped me touch upon and revise a bit of the marketing module I had taken in my first year at NTU. It is in infact a "tool" a lot of companies are using to create estimate targets and also control their pricing.




We also discussed about how US mobile operaters bid to be exclusive carriers of phones for a limited amount of time to gain the upper hand over its rivals. The most recent example is that of the iPhone and how Cingular will be the only operator providing it initially in the US! I won't be surprised if Singtel or may Starhub actually adopts a similar method. They can be sure that I am going to follow them if they stock the iPhone. M1 is also the only provider in Singapore providing the Palm Treo 750 in a 2 year plan! It is an interesting and powerful way of gaining market share and I am really surprised providers here have not been taking advantage of it that much as yet. I am sure that had Starhub or M1 been the exclusive provider for say the MotoRazr we would have a new rank 1 mobile provider by this time in Singapore!

Last but not least a small discussion was held on how Mobile commerce is changing the world we live in and how it can be incorporated into our daily life. We discussed about using it for buying movie tickets and have been asked to come up with slide presentations of new ideas to use Mobile technology to aid Jurong Bird Park provide its commentary and shows in many universal languages. Hopefully the project goes well and be sure I will have a small review on it in my next post!

Article: A first TIME!

Hey! This is something I really wanted to share with those of you who read my blog but haven't read the article yet. It was a first from TIME magazine, to actually name the public as the person of the year. It is interesting and is so true and shows how new technology and the internet has really changed the world!

Time's Person of the Year : YOU

Session 2 Review

WOW!! That was a lot of information! I mean my head is still buzzing with all the TCP/IP, versions 4 and 6, HTML, xHTML, Fixed Mobile Convergence discussions!!

Starhub Case Study
I really have never had a class so far that has managed to link so many different aspects into one interlinked discussion. It was so insightful to do the case study of Starhub and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) which was written by Prof. Gilbert himself. It was informative to see how every little decision or event in a company can have so many different effects and outcomes. A simple idea of integrated billing can really make such a difference. It was a very new exposure to me to see how a new technology can affect a company's revenue, its customer pull and in the end probably even its future. It was also very informative to read about what companies like Starhub had to go through to come up the ranks of Singapore companies. Once you read it you start thinking differently about the company. I for one am a Singtel customer and have always just assumed that it is better than Starhub. I guess that it is a little hard to say which is better for me as a customer, since I have not tried both, but I am definitely opening up to the idea of using Starhub sometime in the future. Anyway the point I want to make is that no matter what business module I have taken, there is a common theme for service industry companies. They have to respect and work on what the public want and at the same time anticipate what the customers want. To me , that is what will make a company such as Starhub successful. A lot of companies have many services that are meant for the entire market, but most of the successful ones have one product initially targettted at a niche market segment. This niche segment eventually becomes the entire market and its presence in that market can only help it. Take Sony and walkman brand, Apple and iPod, Microsoft and Windows, and there are many more expamples.

HTML, XML, xHTML, ip6
To be honest all I knew about these terms before the seminar was that they are a type of coding language which the internet is based upon. Infact, I had never even heard of ip6. After using the trusty Google, I can give you a little bit more than "type of coding language".
Now let me start by telling you that the internet is just millions of computers and thousands of networks connected together to give you the biggest library of information possible. Now what is it that makes all of this possible: coded computer language. The birth of HTML (one of these languages) occured way back by Tim Berners-Lee. Its stands for HyperText Markup Language. The idea it is based on to is print out text, images, headings, etc onto a computer screen as we would see on a piece of paper. Sounds simple doesn't it! The coding session in class proved it was relatively simple. I hope in time I am able to learn a little more about its coding! (Source: Wikipedia)
The next language to learn about was XML, or Extensible Markup Language. Now the main idea of building this language was to enable easier sharing of data across the internet and various networks. XML like HTML was also derived down from a parent language of SGML (Standard General Markup Language). (Source: Wikipedia)
Now, xHTML, in lay man terms is basically a language that combines the capabilities of both HTML and XML all into one package.I am not going to get into the mainy details of the different markup languages as the links to more information on them are given above. But it is important we know the differences between XML and HTML. XML is not a markup language with defined tags and XML tags do not define how the text will look on the webpage. What I also didn't know that some of our web2.0 applications like RSS and MusicXML are actually coded in XML. I have heard and read about the history of the internet but it was a first to read about the languages that help keep the internet alive.
Now before we learnt about ip6, there was a brief introduction on TCP/IP. I have never known anything about it, except for the fact that it exists somewhere in internet options of my web-browser. Now TCP and IP are two separate tools that are responsible for disassembling and reassembling data before and upon reaching their destination and for specifying the addresses to each of these broken up packets respectively. The current internet technology is using IPv4 which is pretty outdated and IPv6 is basically a newer version of this technology. It allows many more addresses, faster routing, autoconfiguration by host and even the capability to handle packets with more than 64kb load! All these improvements can only give us a better web experience.(Source: Wikipedia)
Now reading about all these developments about the technologies surrounding the internet one questions seems to keep popping up in my mind. Why have we taken so long to upgrade the internet? The internet is accessed by millions of computers on a daily basis and is one of the most frequently used technologies worldwide. Its well known that the minute a technology is out and new the next upgrade is already in production. So it leaves me a little confused as to why humans have spent so much time and money upgrading all these new flashy gadgets that are used by just a few people rather than something so powerful like the internet which is becoming more and more of a necessity in day to day life.

802.11b/g/n or WiFi
Wifi seems to be the in thing these days. Every new product has them, from your laptop, to your camera, to mobile phone, the PSP and even home appliances for future smart homes. The internet has become such a powerful tool and a necessity that everyone and every piece of equipment seems to want it. And wad better way to put it in a device than with just a flick of a button and no wires! Its almost like its magically connected to the web! But the down side to all of this is that the more high tech the gadgets get the more "juice" and faster connections it requires. In steps 802.11b/g/n. Now the 802.11 basically denotes the standards for its various elements. 802.11a uses a 5Ghz band, 802.11b and g use the 2.40Ghz band. The other differences in each element lie in the data rate which is something we as Internet addicts are more interested in. The new 802.11n is supposed to provide us with upto 540Mb/s!!! 802.11a/g provide upto 54Mb/s and 802.11b upto 11Mb/s. What this all means is that with faster data speeds we will have a faster internet experience and also be able to share and send larger data faster over the internet. I also found an interesting article on Gizmodo (a site visit frequently) regarding 802.11n. It tells us that 802.11n is closer to reality and that Data2.0 specs have been sent and are awaiting approval. Click here to find out more!
I believe in the next few years more and more wifi hotzones are going to be started as it becoming more a necessity than luxury. Even the Singapore government has recognised this and is launching wireless@sg, which is a basically making Singapore a wireless city by providing free wifi hotzones in all the major areas of Singapore.

Internet2
Well believe it or not a new internet is already being developed in the name of Internet2. It is still in development and testing phase but is based on the ideas of web2.0 which is allowing more interaction. It will give us faster net speeds, more interactive services, and safer and more stable networking capabilities. Yet this dream is still far from reality and will take a while to come out. Infact I am sure it is still a little hard for people to picture better and more powerful than the current internet already is. But this is what I was saying earlier; it is good to see the advancement of a technology that is being used so frequently globally and serves as one of the most powerful tools mankind has developed.

Email and Usenet
Email is something that has really revolutionised the world. Today organisations and every day people all thrive on the internet and have atleast one email address. It is probably among the cheapest ways of sending a message across to someone from anywhere in the world. To be honest when I hear Nokia's slogan of "Connecting People", I picture a phone and the email! There is no doubt a phone call adds a personal touch to sending a message but most of the time an email is good enough and serves the purpose. Lets face it, it cannot be done without in today's world and is the disruptive technology from which postal services have never recovered.

It was quite new to me that Google Groups is actually Usenet and that Usenet was infact developed by a bunch of university students! Usenet is basically an internet discussion system and is the idea of what many discussion boards and forums are based on.


Finally towards the end of the seminar we had a brief overview of a few selected blogs. Reflections were made based on what was written and tips were given to guide in the direction we should be heading in.

At the end of the day, my final reflections on the class leave me eagerly anticipating these new technologies of IPv6, 802.11n and Internet2!

Session 1 Review

The first session of the class gave me an overview of what it is about ofcourse and also what I can expect from it as well as myself. Our tutor, Prof. A. Lee Gilbert did not come across as a usual NTU tutor who produces facts and expects us to produce them out every class and in the exams. In fact it refreshing to see how much he wants to inculcate active participation in class and constant learning process throughout the semester. Anyway my intial thoughts before the class was that I had made a big mistake and that I would drop it straight away. Reading the introduction to the course made me feel like I would be lost and finding myself devoting too much time to a subject I was not sure how much I would enjoy. The first seminar itself made me feel glad I am still taking it as I really believe I will learn so much from this course (from basic HTML, Flash, podcast, Wiki, and many more new technologies in our world). Besides learning all the various things I am a person who is constantly reading about new technologies and am totally fascinated by how advanced our world is getting. To be able to study about them and how they affect various behaviours is something new and I am eagerly looking forward to it.

Below I will further reflect upon different terms that came up in the first class that caught my intention and really got me thinking.

Wiki
Prof. Gilbert informed us that our text book was infact going to be online in the form of a wiki. I have been using the net a lot to learn concepts and various things for many courses but it is the first time I get to actually use a wiki as a text. The only other wiki I am aware of is Wikipedia, that too without really knowing what a wiki is.

A wiki is infact a website that allows different visitors to add, edit and remove content easily. It is always being updated and has so many minds adding information to it. It is a unique way to gather information and I feel will be one of the highlights of the course to be able to have a text book that each and every student can edit and add information too. The concept seems so simple but yet it can be so powerful. It makes so much more sense to have many heads formulating a page of knowledge rather than relying on scholars, teachers and journalists to educate us on matters. They say two heads are better than one and the idea of wiki really brings on a whole new meaning to that phrase. (Wikipedia)

Web 2.0
Never before have I encountered the phrase web2.0. I wonder if there are more terms like this. So after spending some time searching on google I realise I have been using Web2.0 for quite some time and again totally unknowingly! Web 2.0 is a phrase that was termed by O'Riley Media in 2004. It refers to a second generation of interactive internet based services. The keyword here is interactive and I suddenly realise our very own Wiki is infact a form of Web2.0. Infact this very blog, podcasts, RSS feeds are all forms of Web2.0. They are accessible by all the public and again emphasise on interaction and allow people to publish what every they want. Polpular web 2.0 applications and forms are YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, podcasts various weblogs.

Disruptive Technologies
Slowly Prof. Gilbert introduced us to the term of disruptive technologies. This concept was introduced by a person named Clayton Christensen. A little websearch on the name gave me various links about his life and achievements. "He is an outstandinly brilliant man!" was my reaction upon reading about him, his educational achievements and his enterpreneural skills. He is alos the author of many successful business books and was the one who introduced this concept of disruptive technologies. (ITconversations)

The concept took a considerable amount of time in discussion in our class. A disruptive technology is one that is exactly how it sounds: it is disruptive to particular industries. The class came up with so many examples that we all are so aware of and yet we find it so hard to think of it in this way. The most common example ofcourse being downloading of music and how it has affected the music industry. It has decreased the power and profits of huge record labels and give power to ones responsible for the industry in the first place: the musicians. Other examples would be eBay and Amazon and how they changed retail industries. The figures of Jeff Bezo's Amazon is simply staggering and makes you really think about all sorts of possibilities available in our world! In the end it is a different concept and being such a pro-technology person I find it a little hard to place a negative word like disruptive ahead of it!

VoIP
Voice over internet protocol is something that has gained a lot of momentum of late in the western world. It is a new technology that allows the breaking of voice into a digital signal to be carried over the internet and allow for cheaper and newer form of communication. Infact the last I heard was that Singtel is in its testing stage of launching VoIP in Singapore and hopefully it will soon be introduced! One of the most commonly used VoIP services is Skype. It is coming into the market in a big way and we are even beginning to see Skype enabled wifi phones available in the market. All this can only be beneficial for one group of people: the consumer!

Straying a little away from VoIP but still within the form of telecommunication was a discussion on a new mobile phone being launced, the iPhone. Personally, I have been looking forward to the launch of this product for quite a while and have been following up on various rumours about it. And its finally here! What is so special about this product? Well its not the most technologically advanced phone but has certain new technologies (multi-touch, mac osx, wifi, etc) and above all just oozes class in its design! Trust Apple to make an ordinary device seem like the most desirable, with just a simple design and some fabulous marketing! They surely did it with the ipod and i can see them doing it with iphone now.

At the end of the day, I had a lot of fun in this introductory class that has really made me give up my intentions of dropping it. I really do look forward to the podcast session. I really am hooked on to them and spend a considerable amount of time downloading new podcasts and syncing them to my ipod to listen to during the day! I look forward to all future classes and infact am beginning to enjoy blogging about it. Its a new thing for me and I am not surprised why so many people do it. Its addictive, not just to type but to read as well. No wonder TIME magazine's person of the year is infact "you" , the public who have shouted out their opinion! Until my next blog I leave you to ponder a quote I came across:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistiguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog for Electronic and Mobile Commerce!

This is the first time I am writing a blog and I hope its popularity goes on growing throughout the semester. I hope to learn a great deal of new things in the course and also increase my group of friends =)!

Have fun reading and hope to see you again soon!