Piracy has always been an issue for companies that are in the business of distributing software and other digital media. Laws have been passed but still there is a proliferation of pirated products everywhere. How to stop piracy still remains to be a million dollar question. For as long as there is a demand for pirated products, these products will continue to be produced. For as long as there are hardware that allow them to work, there will always be someone who will produce the pirated software. For as long as pirated software are produced, there will always be a company that will produce hardware that allow pirated software to work. At the end of the day, it will just be reduced to a “chicken and egg” problem.

However, in this age where nothing seems impossible anymore, I don’t believe there is no solution. Privacy cannot probably be totally eliminated but it can be reduced by a considerable extent if serious efforts are put towards preventing it.

Here are my thoughts: Software companies can team up with hardware companies in fighting piracy. They can start with educating consumers and producing products that do not promote piracy. For example, hardware companies would discontinue selling products that allow pirated software to work. These companies should also allocate budgets in preventing piracy as part of their social responsibility advocacies to fund government anti-piracy initiatives or to combat piracy themselves. Another is to offer software at competitive prices or just hire the “pirates” to work for them maybe?

I don’t know! What do you think?

While it’s true that each person has his or her own style in getting their job done, best practices are still invaluable in any type of organization.

As an instructor in a professional course, I have no formal training in teaching. For me, Knowledge Management will definitely be useful in my present organization. Younger teachers (like me, in terms of experience, of course) can definitely benefit from more experienced teachers when it comes to effective teaching styles and classroom management. “Experience is the best teacher” as the old cliché says. Also, the tacit knowledge of those who have the knack for teaching will definitely come in handy. Some people are just born teachers.

In the profession of teaching, I would like to think that there are very little barriers in implementing KM. Teachers are in the profession of creating/transferring knowledge so it is quite ironic for a teacher to be unwilling to share his/her knowledge to others. Experienced teachers have always been willing to share their knowledge and tips to younger ones. It seems that they take delight in it and this is how they earn their respect in the organization.

That said, let me end this post by saying that the statement “Knowledge is power but knowledge sharing is empowerment” holds true in the profession of teaching! 🙂

Encouraging employees to use BI tools takes more than just “BI’ing” them to use it.

What will make BI work will depend on the circumstances of each company.

In implementing BI, managers have to plan out their strategies and choose the  that fit the type of employees and processes in place inorder to achieve their objectives in implementing BI.

A rewards-based approach will not work for employees who are not motivated by rewards. There are just those employees who are complacent. Even with the rewards system, they will continue performing at their usual level.  A punitive approach will not work either in an environment where employees do not see the point of punishments. It will only lead to employees who are not happy with the system and end up leaving. Therefore, companies must choose the strategy that will work best with their employees.

Easier said than done. However, experience will tell employers which approach to use. Through time, companies can gauge the type of employees they have to give them an idea as to the kind of system to adopt.  Experience from implementing previous systems can also be the basis for employers in choosing the best approach to use in implementing BI in their company.

It’s been a while since I made my last purchase on the internet. Looking back, I thought it made shopping a lot convenient. It saved me the time to actually go the mall, pick up the item, make the payment and take the item back home. It was even more convenient for me then because I lived on an island (Bermuda) and the shops in town did not have a lot of selection of products that we needed.

The one thing I didn’t like about online shopping was having to input a lot of information online to get my order processed (which I don’t get when standing in line at the shops) along with issues regarding shipping and returns  (missing, damaged or wrong products). Not being able to communicate with the seller is quite a challenge when trying to resolve issues.

Given the above, I would never hesitate buying low cost shoes, clothing, electronics online – these are generic items that I wouldn’t mind getting lost in the mail or I wouldn’t mind getting the wrong orders for.  Things I would think about before buying would include: any high valued electronics mainly because these are items that I cannot easily find locally but if i have the choice I would prefer to buy from brick and mortar stores instead.  But I would never buy food, jewelry and other fragile items online – –   these can easily get damaged or lost in transit.

Outsourcing has become an integral part of most organizations– mostly to cut costs and also due to the unavailability of resources at the company’s disposal to provide on its own certain specialized processes. The outsourced processes range from the simplest and safest process such as janitorial services to the most complex and sensitive ones such as the payroll process. There is probably no limit to the type of process that may be outsourced.

IT Security is a very sensitive process but this is also very specialized process that it may not be very cost effective for a company to hire an entire team just to do this. Besides, this process is very dynamic that it would be costly to keep the team’s skills up to date with all the technological advancements that are taking place.

Of course, with the benefits, comes the risks of IT Security outsourcing. Access to the company’s most sensitive information is allowed to a third party and malicious acts or even unintentional mistakes made by the outsourced company can have disastrous effects on the client company. Not having a sense of ownership may also result in below par performance of the team providing IT security. Unavailability of IT staff to resolve immediate issues may also become a problem.

To avoid these issues, it would help to put in place certain agreements with the outsourced company such as requiring a bond as a guarantee that data security/confidentiality will be maintained, requiring a response time for a data security issue to be resolved and requiring certain members of the team to be on-site to check on problems rather than the whole team working remotely.

This practice of IT outsourcing is done in a lot of companies already and through time, proper controls have been put in place to avoid the issues associated with the process in fact there are a lot companies that have established their names in the IT outsourcing field so I must say, it’s something that is fairly safe and doable!

When you say IT, there are two things that automatically come to my mind– computers and communication.

Over time, IT has changed the way a lot of things work. Fortunately or unfortunately, IT has also changed the way people work.  I, included.

In grade school, I did not even know what IT meant. I thought, life was very simple.

When I was high school, I used computers mainly to process data. MS DOS. Word Star. The communication tools I knew then included landline phones, telegrams, snail mail (but it wasn’t called that then). I thought learning how to use the computer was only needed to get through the requirements of high school and the communication tools were just there in case I needed them.

In college, I got acquainted with email, IRC chat, Yahoo chat and I got excited with the fact that  I can actually send pictures through these channels. Then there were cellphones and texting and I thought picture messages were cool. Little by little I found myself not being able to go through one week without having to check my email. But that was it.

When I started working, it seemed that not having an email access was an excuse for someone not to work and the experience of losing internet connection for a day was no different than that of non-working holiday. Then there were “video conferences” and “phone meetings” and “office chats.”

Indeed,  IT or in my definition, the use of computers and telecommunications (see, they even changed its name now!) has in fact evolved and their uses have reached unimaginable heights. However, the advancement of technology has made us very dependent on them that without them, we can no longer function properly.

Of course change comes with positive and negative effects, it’s a matter of knowing how we use them to our advantage.