Category: Managing IT

Sustainable servers: How IT can help companies preserve the environment and the bottom line

An explosion of electronic data is creating more demand for more storage capacity and for more servers. More servers mean more energy demands, increased costs and a greater impact on the environment. The situation represents an opportunity for IT to play a greater role in helping companies achieve green goals and reduce or contain costs, says Fred Mapp, former Chief Information Officer at AMD and author of "Mapping Information Technology … to Your Business." Mapp was speaking at the Spark 2008 IT Invitational sponsored by the W. P. Carey School of Business.

Analysis: Kevin J. Dooley asks are political blogs predictive?

2008 will be remembered for the classic battles between Obama and Clinton and McCain and Obama, but political wonks will also note the historical nature of this presidential campaign because of the profound impact that the Internet and social media have had on the dynamics of the race. Here, Professor Kevin J. Dooley, an expert in web communication, writes about the way blogs fit in the panoply of news and information media and the impact they have on politics.

Smart services: Customer focus turns technology into solutions

To many participants at the recent Digital Smart Services Leadership Summit hosted by Qualcomm in San Diego, the phrase "smart services" is digital by definition. This new and slightly broader catch phrase covers the field also know as M2M, which means machine-to-machine communications to some or machine-to-man communications to others. But "smart services" refers to more than just the technology that links systems and devices together. Amid all the talk of broadband data rates and RFID (radio frequency identification), marketing Professor Mary Jo Bitner, the academic director of the Center for Services Leadership at the W. P. Carey School of Business, reminded the engineers of what might be called an analog or pre-Internet era definition of smart services: focusing on the customer.

Jamming out Web services? Maybe you need a conductor

Anyone who’s ever watched a jazz ensemble jam knows it’s a fluid process. Players have to listen to each other, yield the stage sometimes, take the spotlight every now and then and always stay in sync with the group. The same could be said for the shift to application development that revolves around web services. With service-oriented applications, functionality comes together in "content mash-ups" that unite multiple web services to give users a comprehensive application. Considering that application developers used to look at their task as a start-to-finish process, service-based software development presents managerial challenges, say Haluk Demirkan and Michael Goul, professors of information systems at the W. P. Carey School of Business. They believe the new development model demands new IT positions, and they call one such role "the conductor."

Podcast: Are self-service technologies making your business better?

Self-service technologies, which automate routine interactions between companies and customers, are a source of convenience and efficiency to both parties — until something goes wrong and the customer cannot make the system work. Many companies should be focusing more closely on the overall customer experience, says Michael Goul, a professor of information systems and a researcher at the Center for Advancing Business Through Information Technology. Curiously, here’s a case where businesses could learn something from government!

Video: Collaborative technology poses challenges for businesses

Collaborative technology can advance business through innovation if it can be managed, translated and used creatively. At the "Achieving Innovation through Collaboration" symposium, hosted by the Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Knowledge@W. P. Carey talked to presenters about challenges for businesses that are using collaborative technologies.