On Software Piracy…

By: Magis

                I say, without judgment to the person of the end user that the act of using pirated software is in itself unethical and therefore, wrong because such an act constitutes theft or infringement of intellectual property rights or misappropriation of another person’s intellectual property as the case maybe regardless of the user’s lack of or existence of noble intentions, motivations, personal circumstance or financial capacity.  Whether or not the user has the financial resource to buy particular software is immaterial as an issue precisely because the argument of having no sufficient amount of money to buy software which is usually expensive is not a valid justification to use pirated software. Since the act of using unlicensed software is unethical, the nobility of intentions neither sanitizes nor lends credence to the act.

            Practically, I don’t think that no company can be completely secure from software piracy as evil is cunning and it operates in any area of human endeavor.  Since for  the Evil One, humans are always the easiest preys and since the Evil One is spirit, it can and will always put man as shield for its evil ways and make man as channel for its will to create havoc in humanity prevail starting from a simple wrong through a  seemingly harmless personal use of a pirated software.  A large-scale wrong always starts from small beginnings.  However, “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more”, as St. Paul aptly puts, God in His goodness would also arm man to combat software piracy.

            I take the following viable measures or suggestions made by Business Software Alliance, an international alliance representing software and e-commerce developers as approaches companies may adopt in order to reduce if not completely stop software piracy:

1. Require employees to sign an anti-piracy statement. According to Information Security, you should include a provision for civil damages of up to $100,000 and a criminal penalty of $25,000.

2. Require regular software inventories. Make sure your staff records the product name, version number, and serial number for each piece of software installed on every computer. You should also perform unannounced audits.

3. Know what your software licenses allow. Keep all your licenses in one place and identify which licenses allow home use by employees and which do not. Also, compare the inventory to your license agreements and delete any illegal software.

AMDG!

On Knowledge Management

 By:  Magis

                “Content that has persistent value is best conveyed in a community where it can be catalogued, searched and retained for future employees.  And that kind of content is best entered and shared via a Web 2.0 social media community.”

-Eric Schurr, vice-president of marketing and direct sales, Awareness, Inc.

                I take the above-quoted words as basis for saying that my own organization (or a selected organization) will benefit much from Knowledge Management because the concept itself, which is, “a practice concerned with increasing awareness, fostering learning, speeding collaboration an innovation, and exchanging insights” provides the possible positive effects of KM since it has for its goal the improvement of the creation, retention, sharing and reuse of knowledge.  It involves “creating  value from an organization’s intellectual assets through codifying what employees, suppliers, business partners, and customers know, and then sharing that information with employees and even with other companies to devise best practices.”  Moreover, organizations at present especially bigger ones, not only in order to survive tougher or even cut-throat competition in the market but more so to maintain, flourish and perpetuate its life in this 21^st century business world, inevitably, must establish KM programs.  “The expansion of the services sector, globalization, and the emergence of new information technologies have caused many organizations to establish KM programs in their Information Technology or Human Resource Management departments.”

                Taking for example, the Religious Institute in the Catholic Church where I belong.  As a human organization, codification of our retreat or recollection modules for those who wish to enrich their spiritual life or for those who wish to try on the ministry of retreat giving, putting them on a data mart and sharing the same to the world would help much in our mission of proclaiming the good news that we have a loving God and He cares for all of us, warts and all.  One biggest barrier though, that I foresee in the implementation of KM in my organization would be the non-prioritization of establishing KM program as an apostolic task and urgency due to the nature of the organization, it being a religious institute and not a business organization.

                “Knowledge is power but knowledge sharing is empowerment”.  From the Christian perspective, which I adhere to, knowledge is a gift from God. As such, it is not only for the exclusive consumption of the one who has or possesses such knowledge.  Gifts are meant to be shared.  Knowledge as a gift, therefore, must be shared.  Sharing knowledge empowers persons or groups precisely because a certain kind of knowledge capacitates people to do and perform better, hence, live more.  The act of sharing multiplies the gift and so the more knowledge is multiplied, the merrier it becomes, as the playing field for all gets leveled and as many get to have equal chance of improving one’s life.  AMDG!

 

 

 

 

 

On Business Intelligence (BI)… (by Magis)

            No doubt, business intelligence is a thing that works a far more advantage for the whole business works and processes of organizations since it functions as a support for improved or a more educated decision-making.  Business intelligence “includes a wide range of applications, practices, and technologies for the extraction, translation, integration, analysis, and presentation of data to support improved decision-making.” (Information Technology Management by Reynolds, G.W., pg. 214).  With the greater business edge that organizations achieve through business intelligence, they must all the more encourage their employees or members to use effectively business intelligence tools that include spreadsheets, reporting and querying tools, online analytical processing, drill-down analysis, data mining, and reality mining.  The encouragement can be done through or by creating a rewards program that carries a stipulation or provision for pay raises on job performance that would require employees to make use of BI tools.  Through the rewards program, employees will find better motivation, interest, and push to make use of BI tools in the performance of the functions that goes with their respective job descriptions.

            I think a punitive program as regards the use of business intelligence tools would more likely work against the effective use of BI tools and thus discourage the use of them because users, including employees, customers, suppliers, and business partners who can access the data and BI applications via the Web, Internet, organizational intranets- even via mobile devices such as smart phones would entertain fear and shun against possible penalties and punishment.

 

On Internet Shopping

by: Magis

 

                First, for a reason that is obvious, it is convenient to go on line shopping because it saves one from having to go to the mall and spend energy and money for transportation.  Secondly, on line shopping facilitates comfort because one gets to avoid traffic blunders especially for those living in highly congested and busy cities; and other external forces both natural like pollution, cold weather, heat of the sun, sudden downpour of heavy rain and flooding and earthquake ; and man-made like fire, accident, hold-up and other petty crimes.   When one comes out of one’s house, he/she runs the risk of being exposed to all these elements. Nowadays, anything can happen at any time and at times even, safety cannot be assured in our very homes.  Finally, one gets to save time doing on line shopping because you simply scan for the items you wish to buy and hit a key to place your purchase order with specifications.  All it takes is a minute or less.  In this case, one does not have to line up nor deal with at times grouchy, slow, irate sales attendant or cashiers.  But on the other hand, shopping via internet can also be less convenient for the following reasons: power breakdown, you do not really get to examine using our senses to see if there are defects or get to “feel” the item/s you want to buy and you must have a knowledge of a wide range of credible and reliable on line stores otherwise, it may happen that what you ordered may turn out defective or not in consonance with your specifications.

                Personally I have no reservations buying on line plane tickets, gadgets and books because they are items that already have and require specifications.  But I will surely have second thoughts placing orders via internet insurance, cars and jewelries because I have yet to check on the credibility, reliability, stability and business reputation of the selling company.              And I will never buy educational plans, real estate (house and lot) and franchise business on line because of a high risk that the business can either be a sham or a scam.

 

               

 

Outsourcing IT Security?

By: Magis

     

                One of the roles managers assume vis-à-vis IT is ensuring that IT risks are mitigated since “It resources are used to capture, store, process, update, and exchange information that controls valuable organizational assets.”  As such, special security measures are necessary to guard all business  information, other valuable and delicate data pertaining to an organization and its business strategies.  Control mechanisms and safeguard measures to maintain the integrity of the organization’s “life” must stand up to adequate standards of check-up and regulation.  IT security by its nature is one delicate area in an organization.  A very valuable data that would leak, spread wide open to the public and mishandled most often than not, would spell doom, danger or havoc to the company’s business reputation and even business longevity.  IT security must be well taken care of.  Hence, outsourcing the same is an issue that I personally do not welcome due to the risks involved.  First, having to outsourced IT security would eventually require the sharing of the company’s confidential and vital matters or data about organizational plans, products or services, personal, private data about employees and customers to the outsourced entity and the latter may compromise the organization especially when the relationship between the company and the outsourced entity would later on turned sour or the contract between them would be terminated.  Second, outsourcing IT security always carries with it the risk or danger of having confidential and vital matters spilling over to the detriment of the organization arising from violation of legally mandated procedures for controlling IT assets or organization’s defined procedures.

 

                However, when the need to outsource IT security really do come to fore as it would be for the best interest of the organization, I would include a stipulation on perpetual confidentiality on the part of the outsourced entity.  This means that the outsourced entity is bound to keep its lips sealed forever about all information given to it even when the outsourcing contract is no longer effective. Other equally important provisions would be liability clause in all cases of violation of the outsourcing contract and the specification of data to be given to the outsourced entity. In this way, not all data must be shared and there is some kind of regulation so that the access of the outsourced entity to vital information about the organization is thereby rendered limited and not all encompassing.  These stringent stipulations would help much to ensure that no exploitation and stealing of strategic and sensitive information will happen.

MAGIS

 

                        ^{The post-modern generation now lives in a globalized world where information travels fast as the normal blinking of an eye owing to the advent of technological revolution.  In the ancient biblical times we are told in the book of Genesis, during the time of the Great Flood (Genesis 8:1-22 & ff.) when Noah had a dove sent out for the second round to check whether there was a dry land already, the “information” he needed was delivered through this manner: “…in the evening, the dove came back to him, and there in its bill a plucked-off olive leaf!” (Genesis 8:11) to signal that indeed, Noah and his family with the pairs of animals can now go out from the ark.  Now, gone or there’s hardly any waiting like a snail-paced sunset to sundown.  When you wish to have information delivered or shared, technology does it for us by just a click of a finger.  All it takes to receive information is a heartbeat- as fast as it is shared is as fast as it is also received.}

                        ^{Information technology with all its practical benefits- personal comfort and convenience, efficient and effective ways of communication, better and faster services in both private and public business transactions and services; without doubt, makes life easier for the men and women of today.}

                        ^{On a personal note, information technology facilitates and helps daily tasks and work faster and easier as a teacher especially when I do on-line researches, computation of grades, preparation of reportorial requirements and keeping in touch with family and friends through social media communications.  However, I believe that aside from or perhaps, more than the practical benefits information technology provides is the fact that it is a human reality that reveals the genius of man through the development and innovations he has done on this field as an expression of his creativity and capacity to create as an exercise of human freedom for “technology enables us to exercise dominion over matter, to reduce risks, to save labor, to improve our conditions of life.  It touches the heart of the human vocational labor: in technology, seen as the product of his genius, man recognizes himself and forges his own humanity….Technology, in this sense, is a response to God’s command to till and to keep the land (cf. Gen 2:15).” (Caritas in Veritate # 69- Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth, Encyclical Letter of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)}

                        ^{Since technology manifests the genius of man, one cannot but also contemplate the genius of the Creator-God who has gifted man with the power to produce using his will and freedom.  Hence, out of my personal Christian conviction, I claim that technology or any development and innovation with regard to the same comes with the challenge to thank and worship God as the real giver of all technological gifts and must therefore lead to one’s gratitude and praise of God.  Since technology is God-given, its end-goal is to give glory to God.  And since its end-goal is to give glory to God, it carries with it man’s responsibility to use responsibly the same in view of the development of peoples and individuals- his purpose and ultimate destiny and for and in the service of humanity.}

^{AMDG! Jeck,FI- Dec. 29, 2013 (MGT 286-Management of Information Systems & Technology, UPV)}