Have you read my email?

During Tuesday's class we talked a little bit about whether or not it is ethical to monitor or read the emails of a board member suspected of leaking company insider information. I have some experience reading one of my employee's emails in my last job. The employee was in a manager position and was having a lot of difficulty with her job--she was unable to complete her tasks or manage her staff. Her staff kept reporting that she was spending all day on her work computer doing personal emails and shopping online. I put her on a performance improvement plan and spent several months coaching her. The amount of time and effort put into improving her was due in part to the fact that she'd been working in the department for several years and had been successful in previous assignments. Additionally, she was part of an employee union, making letting her go very difficult. Ultimately, after much effort, it was determined that we were not going to be able to convert her to a productive employee and she was unwilling to step down into a lesser role like the one she'd been successful in before. It was time to let her go. Although I'd been diligent in keeping records of both her failures and our attempts toward improvement, upper management and the school district lawyers wanted additional proof of her incompetence. For this, they asked that we prove that despite multiple warnings, she was still using her work computer for personal emails and Internet surfing during business hours. The district wasn't set up to monitor this easily, so I had to go into the system at the employee's location and manually go through her old emails (sent and received). Doing this ended up proving that her behavior had not changed since the start of her PIP. Because we could prove that this behavior had not changed, there was more credibility in the eyes of the lawyers to the documentation I had regarding the lack of change in other areas and I was able to let the employee go. Was this ethical? I believe that it was because the email address assigned to our onsite managers was not a personal email account. Our onsite managers had a generic email assigned to their location, not to them personally. Additionally, they were informed that email monitoring was a possibility. We only did this when there was a recognized need to do so and only after clearing it with the attorney first. The personal information that the employee was writing about in her emails was not shared with anyone other than myself and my boss. However, even though I feel like this was an ethical thing to do, it is definitely something that I had to think twice about before I came to that decision. It was in no way cut and dry--which is how most "is it ethical" debates are, not cut and dry.

Late arrival

I was late to class today. I had to meet with a professor to get advice on my enterprise project and this morning was the only chance to meet this week. I figured it was okay because I only had to miss the first 40 minutes and would still be there for an hour. I didn't know we were going to get out 30 minutes early. So I ended up missing most of the class today.

It appears that we covered business optimization today. I'll have to study the slides from today before the quiz next week. I did learn that Doug's favorite word is context. And I saw what looked like a bunch of gibberish on the board (acronyms mean very little when you walk in late). Fortunately, Pablo was kind enough to let me look at his notebook to understand what was on the board.

Seems weird that there is only one week of class left.

So much information

Sometimes I wish I had been born earlier. There was less to know then. Now there is just too much to learn. Just when I think I have a grasp on something, new information comes out. How does anybody keep up?

I like the idea that technology has the ability to help make sense of the information explosion. Because I can't. It's too much. Engaging the value chain seems logical. Moving from reaction to prediction--sounds good but I still have a difficult time putting much credence into technology's ability to make predictions. When framed as helping people to anticpate things though, then it makes more sense. So maybe my problem is just with the word prediction.

A petabyte sounds big. And sort of dirty.

Head in the clouds

I liked the IT delivery model exercise today. And I like the assignment for cloud computing--sounds fun. Like most adults, I don't consider myself to be a very creative person, and with Kristin in the class, I already know whatever I come up with will be nothing compared to her creative mind (props to Kristin), but I'll do my best. And it doesn't matter anyway, I'm just happy to know what cloud computing means now. It was another one of those IT things people would casually talk about and I would pretend to know what it means. Now when I nod my head knowingly, I will mean it.

Understanding SOAs

After the last class in which we were introduced to services and asked to create a component map for a learning department, I was feeling a little lost. That was no easy task--plus I didn't know what the he** a learning department did, so how was I supposed to put together a map based on the components of said department? Whatever, I tried. I learned that it is no easy task. That is the point, n'est pas?

I'm feeling a lot more on board following the SOA lecture. Breaking down business applications into services, using the technology that is available to make these services independent components and then rearranging them to create new capabilities. Got it. And Oscar's example really helped me to visualize it. Seems like a really great idea that requires a lot of change and adaptability on the part of people within an organization as well as time and money. I'm assuming it is the need for change that is the biggest obstacle to implementing SOA within an organization.

Kind of jonesing for a trip to a farm amusement park now. I think my kids would like it.

What I've learned in MBA school

Something was said in class today that can pretty much sum up MBA school for me. I think it will stand as my main take away from the whole experience. Ready for it? It's profound.

The whole point of MBA school is to figure out how to be in the upper right quadrant all the time. If you don't know what I'm referring to, then perhaps you aren't in MBA school. Or maybe you are but you haven't been paying attention. Go ahead and draw a four-square grid with an X/Y axis and label the axes accordingly depending on the class in which you are in. Determine where you want your company to be. Not sure where? The answer is (almost) always pick the upper right quadrant, that is where you want to be.

How do you get your company there (if it isn't already)? Well that is the million dollar question, and it is why we are in school. To strategize, to figure it out, and if we can't do that, to fake it.

The number one rule of technology in business

Never implement technology just for the sake of technology. This makes absolute sense in theory but is probably more difficult to maintain in practice. I think it would be very easy to fall in to the trap of getting the newest gadgets and software, even if they weren't going to add incremental value to the business. I think this is true even for experienced CIO that know this number one rule. It's easy to convince yourself that a new technology is going to drive efficiency, improve reliability, or solve a business problem.

The speaker in class was interesting. I learned some stuff about the construction industry--which I didn't know much about before. There is definitely more usage of technology than I would have guessed. I doubt I will use much of the industry knowledge I learned about, but I took some high level stuff out of the class. He made it obvious how important corporate culture and having social capital is to his role and how each play into his ability to get his job done. I think that is something that is useful to understand irregardless of the industry.