Module 8

Jacob Ready

2/26/2012

Module 8

Module 8

     The most important part of education in today’s society is being connected to the world around us and being able to be connected to others at anytime and anywhere.  Being connected can sometimes make things very complicated yet also very helpful.  Being able to contact my teachers at anytime has been a huge change for me since the time I was younger.  I was never able to call my teacher on her cell phone or even email her when I had a question on my homework assignment.  It has made learning easier and more efficient.  Computers have affected most everything we have to do at our school here at Weber State.  Many of the classes that I have personally taken here at Weber State have been online classes.  These classes in the past have never been capable of being a part of our educations.  I play on the golf team here at Weber State; I’m not able to always be in class so computers have made it easier to receive an education without actually attending a class. I can get the information that is needed of a computer anywhere that has computer access.  Usually at every hotel that we stay at during the trips has access to wi-fi.

  We were asked to explain how computers have been used in my education.  I think computers are the best way of learning.  Like the book we have been reading about computer have leveled everything we no longer are just students in a class and the only way of contacting our teacher or turning in homework is by coming to class.  We now turn in our assignments to an online classroom called connect or blackboard.

     Computers have changed education and are becoming more and more a part of our lives.  Students at my brothers high school are now receiving laptops for the year to reduce the costs of the classes over the years and not having to pay teachers.  Without computers we would never be able to do these types of classes unless the kids had laptops from home.

MOdule 7

Jacob Ready

IST1100

Module 7

2/20/2012

Module 7

After readying the chapters assigned to us I learned that some countries or regions are better at doing some things than other countries or regions because some countries may be better at specific things such as shipping to other by have a port of air strip close to them.   Whereas other may need to have additional cost just to get the materials to those areas where they can be shipped out.  Another advantage is being about to create the good with the raw materials that you have from your home land rather than having to ship materials in you could make or grow them yourselves. Other advantages that are having the work force available to be able to get the work done that is available.

     Self directed consumers are the way that people lead to other businesses through the way they react to the way they feel about a company publically.  Face book for me and many others now has become a huge part of people’s lives and every day I hear about some company that someone got screwed over by and they want to let everyone know that it was not right and want to change the way that people feel about them.  Other way that it is changing is through Twitter I have never personally used twitter but I know that many celebrities do and we are always hearing their opinion on something that they believe is true and you can see the way that people react to that and it can hurt the way that other feel about that company.

     The third and final question was about is globalization mean Americanization? I thought a lot about this and realized that American culture has become a huge part of the global culture but I still think that we will always have cultures around the world that want to keep it the way that they were born into.  Americanization is happening to everyone and people are having to change to make moves up in the business world since America is such a huge part of the global economy.

Module 6

Jacob Ready

IST 1100

Module 6

2/12/2012

Free trade is an economic theory that involves the analysis and function of importing and exporting goods without restriction. Many nations engage in free trade to ensure their citizens have enough economic resources or consumer goods for meeting various needs or wants. Free trade to me would be a very cool and awesome way of think but isn’t necessarily realistic. We say that we have free trade but every country has some form of restrictions on what goes in and out of their countries. Free trade is important to the U.S because of the amount of good that we ship in to our country it would be very costly if we were being taxed on all the oil that is brought in.

     The skills and traits that make up a new middler is a person who is able to cooperate and make changes with all the new technology. They stay on the sides of both being able to make changes and cooperate with everyone around them. Freidman talks about the new middle being going green and making the changes we need to keep our planet alive.

That last point that Freidman was trying to teach us about how CQ + PQ is greater than your IQ. What this means curiosity and passion factor is more important than IQ levels.  This personally means the most to me because it believes that this is one of the most important things that I have ever been told.  I have learned through all the work that I have done that work is more about hard work and how much you put into things than about how high your IQ is. I was told this when I was younger from my dad that it’s not about what you know but who you know. I have never really take that to heart till I had to start looking for jobs and I realized that throughout my life time every job that I have ever had has come from someone that I know.  I believe that every opportunity that has come or arisen for hasn’t been because of a specific skill that I have learned from a class. I have learned that personal skills get you everywhere in life. In conclusion Freidman’s book has taught me more about business than any other book than I have ever read.

Module 4

Jacob Ready

1/29/2012        

Module 4

IT Job Interview

Module 4

     I conducted an interview with my friend back in Boise Idaho.  He works on the geek squat at the best buy that I live by.  I first started off with a brief explanation of the class that I am in and he thought it was very interesting how we have finally decided to come into the reality and decide that we all need to understand that we are being taken over by technology and that we are losing jobs to a computer.  After briefing him on what I was doing I told him that I was interviewing him on his job and what it all entails. He explained to me that he really enjoys his job and loves feeling the satisfaction of being to help people every day.  He explains how some days he gets a little frustrated with the occasional grandparents trying to fix their computers.  He said the best part of his job is always learning something new every day and continually gaining experience with computers.  I thought about what he had said about gaining experience and asked him if this experience would help him with future jobs.  He told me that this job is probably the best thing that he could possibly have right now with the technology expansion that we are having.  He explained how it helps him stay ahead of the curve and every company needs a computer tech. and technology is the new and upcoming jobs. 

     The second part of the interview I decided to compare it to the book that we have been reading and ask him what he thought about what was going on.  I told him a few of the interesting facts that I had learned from the book.  He told me that he isn’t surprised at all about what is going on.  He said he knew that other countries would be catching up with us.  I asked him if he had heard anything out of the ordinary that I might now have heard from my book and he said that he had actually read the book that we are reading in class and said that the world is flat is one of the most eye opening books he has ever read and that is part of the reason that he works for the geek squad today.  The book inspired him to become involved in what the world is becoming and to try and learn what he can so that we don’t fall behind.   I learned a lot from my friend and after the interview I realized that I am learning more everyday about how technology and computers are changing our world in ways that would have absolutely blown Americans away ten years ago.  Everyone on earth can be in contact with each other in a matter of second and information can travel from place to place faster than we thought was ever possible.  I feel the next step in technology will be having email as our only source of a written information rather than hand written letters of contracts but just send an email or fax sign it then send it back.  I feel than our national postal service will only be used for delivering items not mail.  This interview was very exciting and I learned a lot from this and that I may want to get involved with computer before I get left in the dust.

Module 5

Jacob Ready

Module 5

IST 1100

2/5/2012

Module 5

            After reading the pages in the book I am learning so much form this book and am realizing that the world is much bigger and defiantly “flatter” than I thought it was.  One of the important things that Freidman talked about was the Triple convergence which was in addition to the ten flatteners that were three additional components that acted on the flatteners to create a new flatter global playing field. The first up until the year 2000, the ten flatteners were semi-independent from one another.  An example of independence is the inability of one machine to perform multiple functions. When work-flow software and hardware converged, multiple functions such as e-mail, fax, printing, copying and communicating were able to be done from one machine. Around the year 2000, all the flatteners converged with one another. This convergence could be compared to complementary goods, in that each flattener enhanced the other flatteners; the more one flattener developed, the more leveled the global playing field became.

The second was after the emergence of the ten flatteners a new business model was required to succeed. While the flatteners alone were significant, they would not enhance productivity without people being able to use them together. Instead of collaborating vertically, business needed to begin collaborating horizontally.

            The third was after the Berlin wall fell countries that had followed the Soviet economic model including India, China, Russia, and the nations of Eastern Europe, Latin America and Central Asia- began to open up their economies to the world.  When this happened it added new brain power and the whole playing field enhanced horizontally across the globe.

                        One of the most disturbing things that I read in this book was the fact that an Indian company won a contract for the chance to upgrade the unemployment department of Indiana and were going to have employees move from India to here to work when they said that they were going to hire locally.  I thought that is was ridiculous that we would hire a Indian firm instead because they could make a higher bid on the contract because the Indiana firm was too small of a company to big 16 million dollars.

            The last and final part of what I felt was important about what Freidman had said was about intellectual property.  I had never heard of intellectual property is any innovation that a company has come up with and it is a very big issue because it gives companies the right to say that they own certain products and that other companies can’t steal it and use it for their uses without some sort of repayment. The reason this is so important is because businesses from overseas are using the same things that we have created to make more of the items in a cheaper way and it is becoming a problem for companies within the United States.