Speaking Notes

PADM 5500

February 11, 2010

Dr. Neubauer

 

WHERE WE ARE:

 

http://www.robertcat.net/spring2010/padm5500/index.html

 

THE "LOG CABIN" EXPLANATION OF DATA COMMUNICATION

 

FRIVOLOUS AND NON-FRIVOLOUS PROTOCOLS

 

THE INTERNET GREW OUT OF THE NEEDS OF THE US MILITARY FOR A COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM WITH NO SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE

 

THE BACKBONE IS THE SET OF MAJOR CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PLACES.

http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html

http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/cox_1457_large.jpg

 

 

 

TCP/IP IS THE PAIR OF PROTOCOLS THAT THE INTERNET USES

 

HOW COMMUNICATIONS MOVE WITHIN AND ACROSS NETWORKS

 

 

A DOMAIN NAME IS A MASK FOR AN IP ADDRESS

http://www.lawrencegoetz.com/programs/ipinfo/

 

DOMAIN NAME SERVERS KEEP THE DATABASES THAT MATCH UP DOMAIN NAMES WITH IP ADDRESSES

 

ROUTERS ARE MACHINES THAT FORWARD PACKETS (FRAMES) TOWARD THEIR DESTINATIONS

http://www.howstuffworks.com/router.htm/printable

 

ORGANIZATIONS AND PEOPLE GET THEIR DOMAIN NAMES FROM COMPANIES LIKE GODADDY.COM

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/default.asp

 

ORGANIZATIONS AND PEOPLE GET THEIR CONNECTIVITY THROUGH INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (ISPs)

 

THE WORLD WIDE WEB IS THE MULTIMEDIA EXTENSION OF THE ORIGINAL INTERNET.

 

WEB BROWERS INTERPRET HTML FILES AND DISPLAY THE DATA

 

INTERNET, INTRANET, AND EXTRANETS

 

IT IS ALL ZEROS AND ONES – NOT "ANALOG"

 

http://visualroute.visualware.com/

 

"Traceroute" may be helpful in understanding what is happening when packets move across the Internet.

 

 

BARRETT AND GREENE, CHAPTER 5 -- Who's in Charge?

 

The CIO is not just the head of the IT Department.  The IT Director is probably already very overworked.  There are limits to what one person can do.  Ideally, STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP should be separated out from TACTICAL MANAGEMENT and the two areas of responsibility reflected in two positions.

 

Information is now considered as valuable a resource as is money.  Most large organizations have a CFO.  Likewise, it is becoming increasingly common to have a CIO.

 

Granted, most small cities and counties cannot afford to employ a professional CIO.  Nevertheless, the recognition of the STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE of information management should be evident. 

 

SOMEONE needs to be qualified to make strategic decisions regarding INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, and that is far more than how many computers (and what brand) to buy.

 

Who should the CIO report to?  If he or she reports to an ELECTED EXECUTIVE, then it tends to become a political position.  The old idea that there can be a clean separation between ADMINISTRATION AND POLITICS has fallen.  Anyone employed by government is going to have to deal not only with "office politics" but real politics as well.

 

Most CIO's came up through the technical ranks.  Such persons may lack advanced administrative and political skills.  It is a rare person who can be a successful CIO.

 

In state and local governments the role of CIO is becoming more common and increasingly important.  It is not an easy job.  This is a POLICY LEVEL position and perhaps should not be held responsible for everything that happens at the operational level.  But in a small organization people sometimes must "wear more  than one hat."

 

STAIR AND REYNOLDS, CHAPTER 5 – E-Commerce (E-Government) and Transaction Processing Systems

 

When the Internet was invented for the military and a few lucky professors, they had no idea what it could become.

 

Under "no child left behind" are we partly outsourcing the education of our children to India?

 

Will it come to largely replace radio, television and the telephone; and transform the music and movie industries?

 

Will the internet evolve to change the structures of governments and perhaps even the meaning of democracy?

 

The same technologies (hardware and software) are being applied to both e-commerce and e-government.

 

E-commerce "models"

 

            B2B

            B2C

            C2C

 

Basically in commerce you have supply chains among organizations and value chains within organizations.

 

In government (in the US) you have relationships among agencies based upon federalism and regional governance.  Plus you have working relationships between agencies and nonprofit organizations.

 

Paper-based B2B systems are slow and costly.  They cannot support lean "just in time" production systems.  They are not agile in response to changes in the market.  Older B2B electronic systems are based upon a technology called EDI (electronic data interchange).  This is costly and not flexible.  Web services and SOA (service oriented architecture) is probably the way of the future.  This is kind of slow (for technical reasons) but it is much less costly and potentially much more flexible than EDI.

 

B2B is also likely to become more portal-based, just as B2C e-commerce already is.  Basically we are talking about automating business processes both within organizations and between organizations that are strategic allies.

 

B2C commerce comes in three varieties . . .

 

 

C2C is a situation in which a company facilitates communications or transactions among others (customers) and somehow has a business model that allows it to make some money without being directly involved selling things to customers.

 

B2B is primarily about saving costs.  B2C is primarily about selling something. 

 

E-government is primarily about saving money and making government services more easily available to citizens (or facilitating citizens solving their own problems without involving government employees.)

 

Government is largely about information.

 

I think we will see new kinds of payment systems on the Web, such as letting citizens of Florida pay for certain government services with Sunpass on the Web.  We need a micro payment system for the web that gets us away from the attitude that so many things "have to be" free.  Payments for "toll sites" could be made easy and most people would not mind paying small change for premium sites if it was no hassle to make the payment.

 

Transaction processing systems support processes within organizations and between strategic partners.  They can also extend out to include customers.

 

            Internet – "the big one"

            Intranet – "the small one in our organization that works like the big one"

            Extranet – "our letting selected others have access to parts of our intranet"

            sales portal – the way retail customers can buy things from us

 

ERP's (Enterprise Resource Planning systems)

 

These are large, modular "do it all" information systems for organizations.

They generally one on one big enterprise-wide database.

They are very expensive and to my knowledge are still based on legacy technologies.

They are difficult and costly to customize.

 

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF E-COMMERCE, E-GOVERNMENT AND TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYTEMS?