Social Media project - Walmart - Group 8

As part of the social media project in ISM3004, we were assigned to research a company's Internet and social media presence. Our group chose Walmart as our social media project company. Our group's research included analyzing Walmart's presence on the following Internet websites; YouTube, FaceBook, Google, Bing, Twitter, Twitrratr, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, and Walmart.com. I researched Walmart’s YouTube page, Wikipedia page, and their social media guidelines.  I learned that it is important for a company to have a social media presence, but more importantly a structured and customer-caring existence. It is good to see a company setting and sharing guidelines on social media use. It sets the bar in regards to what to expect from Walmart's social media presence and what is allowed to be posted on the Internet. My employer, Harland Financial Solutions, has an online presence on Twitter and YouTube, but I am unable to find the social media guidelines or policy. There are articles about social media, but no policy was found.

Our group was able to collaborate and bring together all needed content. Hawiane Tidwell was our group leader and assigned tasks to each group member to do with a deadline set for all research. I believe all group members participated in their assigned tasks. Hawiane did a great job at combing all of our research into the group Wiki page. We worked together well and our leader produced a well written report on Walmart's social media and online presence.

It is important for a company to have a social network presence to keep up with the multiple generations of buyers. With the combination of smartphones and social networking, the consumer is closer to the brand and company than ever before. Not only is it important and critical for companies to use social media avenues, but they must also have guidelines to follow. Without guidelines, the reputation of the company is at stake with everything anyone says about your company online.

Our group’s Walmart Wikispace: http://ism3004socialmedia.wikispaces.com/Wal-Mart

Week 13: Clear - Power of Social Media

Businesses, large and small, can leverage social media channels in many ways.  Although, it is crucial to have a strategy for your business to approach your business's social media channels.  A company must know what their end goal is to effectively select the best social media outlet.  Businesses must leverage social media to focus on engaging with customers, both current and prospective.  Now with social media, businesses are talking with customers, not just at customers.

An example of real-world use of Facebook for a small business is Adrienne Frankenfield Photography.  This business is owned by a high-school friend of mine and is used to share and promote her photography work.  Within the company's posts, the owner/photographer posts tutorials, special prizes, samples of recent photo sessions, and interaction with fans and customers. With Facebook's huge user base, there are endless possibilities of customer reach through their large network.

Reference URL: https://www.facebook.com/AdrienneFrankenfieldPhotography.

Week 12: Clear - Living in a Networked Society

Never did I foresee that my grade-school classmates would be just a click away.   With the power of social networking and the internet, networked computers have allowed the world to connect to each other  and share photos, videos, updates and more with each other.  We are able to connect with family, friends, and acquaintances, close and distant.  When  I graduated from high-school in 1998, I expected that most of my classmates were going to be distant and possibly unreachable.  Facebook and other social networking sites have allowed me to connect to distant relatives and friends throughout my life.  My wife has even connected with teachers, early classmates, and  friends from Puerto Rico.  Thankfully, distance is no longer a reason to be disconnected to the ones that you know and love.

With so much social networking  and net openness, comes an increased need for safety and security.  So much of our lives are now publicly accessible on the internet.  Even though social networking  sites and such promote  and offer safety and security, by default your social profiles and information is public.  Information aggregators, such as www.Spokeo.com, gather information from multiple publicly accessible websites, even public records such as county records and home purchases. As users and inhabitants of social networking, we must always keep security in  mind when using not only the internet, but more importantly any Web 2.0 technologies.    

URL Reference: SPOKEO.COM

Picture taken from http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7012/6521973071_ab919eb642_m.jpg (Creative Commons)

Week 11: Clear - Data Challenge for IT and Security

Data and information is critical to any business to function and be profitable.  Data is raw facts and figures without context.  Information is data that is put into context to answer questions and support decisions.  Essentially, you cannot have one without the other.  Having data and information at your businesses fingertips brings many responsibilities and challenges.  From an Information Technology perspective, data has to be stored somewhere and be accessible to be of any value.  Unfortunately, data and information continues to grow at rapid rates and are relied upon more and more.  The storage space of data has to grow with the increased amount of data being accumulated.  In addition, business is reliant on the data and information being stored to the point that it has to be readily accessible at all times.  If businesses cannot accept any more data or the data is inaccessible, the business loses money by the minute.   There are a few headaches that come along with  

On top of the storage and accessibility of data and information, businesses now have to adhere to strict regulatory and compliance legislation of the data.  This is true in many industries including; healthcare, financial, education, manufacturing, and retail.  Even if an organization does not process financial data or healthcare data, they have a responsibility to protect the personal records of its employees.  These compliance regulations include PCI-DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, GLBA, and FISMA, to name a few.  Complying with such regulations can be costly, but now it is the "cost of doing business."  Not complying with such government standards and regulations will ultimately cost a company its business through fines, lawsuits, and lost reputation.  When scoping and researching information technology hardware and software, adherence to compliance must be thought of from the very beginning instead of the end or after implementation.  This has caused an increase in the cost of doing business, but at the same time has allowed for many job opportunities in the Security Compliance career field.

Database Project

Out of all the years that I've worked in the Information Technology & Security field, I have never used Microsoft Access as much as in this course. These past few weeks in this course have taught me many things in Access. Working with databases can be quite daunting, but with desktop database management tools such as Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro, databases are manageable by non-IT gurus. Using tables, queries, forms, and reports allow for more efficient data management. Access allows for methods of answering tough questions and relationships in datasets.

In addition to the instructions given for the database project, a few more steps can be done to improve the Members database and make it even more functional. Inner-join, data field validation, and drop down combo box are options for easier form input and efficient output. Also, if there are membership dues, another table, form, and report can be made to track the payments. This additional membership dues table can be a relational link with the MemberID primary key. Using an "inner-join" a query can be run against both tables and provide a combined report as if it was a single data table. This can effectively be used to manage the membership database of this club.

Week 10: Clear - Compatibility of Access

Among database management tools, Microsoft Access is hands down the easiest to use. Microsoft Access is a desktop database management tool, which comes bundled with some versions of Microsoft Office suite.  Access allows a fairly proficient computer user to create databases for just about anything.  The use cases of databases are endless. You can store data in a relational database, run queries on the data, create forms for data entry, and create stunning reports analysis of the data to be more understandable.  One limitation of Access is its availability for Mac users, because for some reason this software is not compatible with Mac computers.


Microsoft Access is a great database management solution for start-up companies, small businesses, and home offices.  With its wide range of abilities and features, its low cost of purchasing and ownership, and ease of use, Access is the software of choice for many.  Microsoft Office products are very user friendly and are well documented , so if you need help with making or managing your database, help is readily available.

At my previous employer, they relied on a self-made Access database program with forms for data entry and reporting.  The fields used calculations to reconcile companies' escrow bank sheets.  The owner of the company created the program using Access 2000 and used it in production for servicing their clients.  They soon grew out of the custom Access database program and had to transition to a more robust relational database.  At the time, it was superseded by creating and managing the companies relational databases using Microsoft Visual Fox Pro 8.

Week 9: Clear - Evolution to ubiquitous computing

Over the years, the evolution of computing encompassed five (5) waves of evolution. In the 1960's, mainframe computing was available to large organizations. In the 1970's, mini-computers became available to many businesses. In the 1980's, personal computers became available to the public. In the 1990's, mobile computing devices became available and allowed a portable workforce. And finally, in the new mellinium, ubiquitous computing came to fruition. Ubiquitous computing is when information processing has been thoroughly integrated into our everyday lives.

There's a reason why ubiquitous computing is also referred to as "pervasive computing". There is little to no disconnect from these always-connected devices. There are advantaged and disadvantages to ubiquitous computing. Being always connected is something that not everybody wants. With an iPhone, you can send and receive calls, access the internet, balance your checkbook, and more. Then, to top that, some Bluetooth earpieces can be controlled with only your voice, which can then command your phone and it's abilities. Our society is now used to the instant gratification.

Image from: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/90/274169938_56482dfedf.jpg

Excel Project

Our class project for the past two weeks has been focused on Microsoft Excel. There are so many uses for this application.  This project got me intimate with Excel's various subject areas, such as data formatting, printing, formulas, cell addressing, functions, and pivot tables.  We began with an Excel "scavenger hunt", which essentially were about 30 tasks in Excel.  Then, we used the techniques and knowledge learned from the scavenger hunt to do data analysis and reporting for a large fitness center assessing the effectiveness of a particular workout.  The analysis of the data was enhanced by creating two pivot tables in this Excel workbook to aid in the owner's research.  One pivot table was to answer the question, "How many subjects reached their target heart rate during the 15 minute exercise window".  The other pivot table was to answer the question, "Which demographic groups got the most benefit from the exercise regimen".  A screen capture of the demographic results of this data is below in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Pivot table showing average increase by gender and age group.

This project, like all projects in this course, has gone above and beyond my existing knowledge. I now have a better understanding of Excel's multiple uses, including pivot tables, functions, and absolute and relative cell addressing used in conjunction with formulas and functions. Using pivot tables allowed me to take a huge amount of structured data and create specific and understandable charts for analysis.  Also, absolute and relative cell addressing assisted in creating more dynamic formulas and functions.  I use Excel in my career for data analysis tasks, but with the knowledge I have gained from this project, I will be able to apply it to my job and exceed expectations when analyzing and reporting on data.

Presentation Project

This presentation project turned out to be a rewarding subject.  My career is in the information security field.  Part of my job is educating others about information security and how to protect yourself and the company's data.  I am leveraging this project with the presentation that I will give while together with our Corporate Security Group in a few weeks.  The previous presentation that I made for this summit two years ago belongs in the PowerPoint "hall of shame".  This class has already proven valuable to my career.  After evaluating my submitted presentation tonight, against the evaluation rubric, my presentation lines up well, but lacked at least in one area.

I created a logical flow from the start with the "Top 5 ideas" flow.  I began with a question and ended asking for any questions from the audience.  I grabbed the attention within the first 30 seconds by starting out with a question to the audience rather than introducing myself first. I asked questions and brought up issues to the audience to spark interest.  The illustrations that were used related to the subject of the awareness tip.  More information could have been given, but time restraints only kept his list to five (5) tips and little explanation. I did not clutter my presentation slides.  As a learning reflection, before I took this class, my presentation slides were created with too much clutter.  Although, I did not give any websites to reference to find more information. 

URL of my presentation:  http://my.brainshark.com/ISM3004-presentation-project-BRADSHAW-Security-Awareness-636682325

As I watched another student's presentation, they had background music during the presentation.  Background music should be at a very low volume to ensure the speaker is clearly heard.  I leaned on the safe side for my recording and did not have any background music playing.  The peer presentation that I watched gave a well presented Credits ending.  After I viewed theirs, I realized that mine lacked in detail.  I should have credited websites on where to validate claims.  

Week 7: Clear - Saas Adoptions

Software as a Service, also known as SaaS, is a software distribution business model where the software being used by the customer is delivered over the internet and is hosted by the vendor on their servers and storage systems.  SaaS is part of the service delivery models used in Cloud Computing.  The other cloud computing service delivery models include Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).   From an enterprise perspective, these cloud computing service models can be very beneficial in several ways, given that the usage is provisioned with a non-disclosure agreement or contract and is approved by your enterprise's leadership and information security organization. Customer benefits of SaaS cloud computing include; near 100% availability and up-time, anywhere access, lower electricity costs, space savings, hardware and software maintenance is handled by the provider, and more time to dedicate to other business projects and processes. 

My current employer, a financial services company, uses various cloud computing vendors for different purposes.  Our email messaging spam engine is Microsoft Forefront for Exchange, hosted "in-the-cloud" with no hardware or software maintenance needs on our end, we only are responsible for our desired spam configurations.  Also, we use a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), which includes system event log monitoring and management, 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC), and managed hardware and software for the log collection system.  The events are correlated locally, with the vendor's hardware and software in our data centers, then securely sent "to the cloud" in the MSSP's two Network Operations Centers for monitoring and cloud for monitoring, analysis, and storage.  Using an MSSP has proven to be a time saver, in which we do not have to worry about maintaining the hardware and software of the security monitoring system, plus they are a security subject matter expertise partner.  Both of these cloud computing technologies has enabled our company and employees to focus our time and abilities on other projects and tasks.

Photo taken from: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3428/3746242768_92d2a03e87.jpg

Week 6: Clear - Application Software development

Should you build or buy your company's application software? It's a fairly difficult decision to make. Both have their pros and cons, but like every business decision you must think strategically and base it on what the business needs. If your company needs a certain functionality and it is available, either commercially or in open-source, buying will give you the benefits of support, expertise, and possibly training. On the other hand, if your company needs application functionality that is NOT available, either commercially or in open-source, having it built from the ground up is probably best. Having it built essentially has only one benefit, it's customized for your organization's needs. On the other hand, there are downfalls to having it built, which include limited support, expertise, and flexibility to change with your business.





About six (6) years ago I was employed with a private investigation firm. My primary responsibilities there were IT support and computer forensics. The company's primary software for conducting their reconciliation service was a custom built application by a father-son development team. It was built using Microsoft Visual FoxPro. I did not have any experience in software development, but my company managers began having me shadow the application developer and learn as a backup developer. There was not enough time and resources for me to become a master of all three trades at once. The development transitioned to a web application in Active Server Pages (ASP) with database transactions. This developer did a great job at building software that enhanced business efficiency.

Microsoft Visual FoxPro: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms950411.aspx

Image from: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/172/407900440_e9e1f7f5a4_z.jpg

Week 5: Clear - Presentation Challenges

Giving a presentation to any size crowd can be a daunting task.  To make it a success and a great experience for both the audience and the presenter, there are several challenges the presenter must overcome.    All or most of the challenges can be aided by more preparation and learning.

One challenge is getting your point across without writing everything you are saying on the presentation slides.  While we want the audience to remember our words and message, it is best to not write it all out on your presentation slides.  Some outcomes of this are lost attention of the audience and difficulty reading because of small font size and high signal-to-noise ratio. The audience will stop focusing on your presentation and start losing your support.  It is critical to retain the audience's attention, so avoid the clutter and treat your audience as if you are watching your own presentation.

Another challenge, for a large majority, is presenting without showing your nervousness or anxiety.  This can be aided by relaxation breathing and most importantly preparation. Make sure you study the subject, plan, and practice. Ask for feedback and prepare in front of family or friends to practice.

I will actually be doing a presentation in front of my co-workers and colleagues during the second week of March , in three weeks.  There will be about 60-75 people in the audience.  I will be doing my presentation on security awareness, both physical and information security.  Taking this course is helping me prepare for and do well on the presentation.  There are several presentation "don'ts" that I have done in the past.  After watching this week's lectures and reading the related content, I have learned how to overcome some presentation challenges.

Image from: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2073/2264195999_c4cc2c9ef7_d.jpg

Week 4: Clear - Competition Driving Innovation

A prime example of competition driving innovation is the relationship and history between Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder) and Bill Gates (Microsoft co-founder).  This has lead to so many technology improvements and innovations throughout the years of these two companies and entrepreneurs.  Their ideas and value-chain strategy has led to stronger products and more benefits for the  consumer.  For Microsoft, they started out by developing DOS and have since dominated the personal computer, gaming, and enterprise server computing markets. For Apple, they started out by creating very user friendly computers, then later dominated the mobile device market with the Macbook, iPod, iPhone, and most recently, the iPad.  Unfortunately, Steve Jobs is no longer with us.  On October 5 2011, cancer took his life too soon at such an early age.

Apple iTunes was the first of its kind to deliver digital music to the world in a centralized, quick, legal, and efficient manner without having the consumer leave their house to purchase music.  This allowed for iTunes to utilize technology and the internet as a distribution and promotional channel.  Apple collaborated with the recording industry, both musicians and record companies, to deliver music quicker to the consumer than ever before.  This was introduced in a time where music was being shared illegally at a high rate without a mature and centralized digital distribution channel.  Now,  in 2012, iTunes has developed into more than just digital music offering TV shows and movies for rent and purchase, digital books, and most recently iTunes U.  The devices that play all of this content include the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Come to think of it... this blog post is being created on both my iPad and iPhone.  

R.I.P. Steve Jobs 1955-2011

The following URL provides insight into how Apple changed music distribution and promotion. Reference URL: http://ipod.about.com/od/glossary/a/how-apple-changed-music.htm

Week 3: Clear - Importance of Redundancy

In business and enterprise computing, availability of data and information is probably the most important criteria of information technology.  To ensure the availability of data and services, the hardware and configurations must be redundant in all aspects.  Redundancy can be accomplished in multiple ways.  There are redundant hard drives, power supplies, network interface cards (NIC), network switches and routers, just to name a few.  Unfortunately, there are components that cannot be redundant, which are motherboards, hard drive controllers, operating systems, and software.  To aid in non-redundant aspects, servers can be setup to do clustering, virtual machines, and network load balancing.  Hardware failures can occur without any warning and must be planned for based on the criticality of the host and data.

Hard drive redundancy is accomplished using a technology called Redundant Array of Independent Disks, also known as RAID.  RAID is a storage technology which utilizes multiple disks to create a virtual storage volume.  This storage volume provides fault tolerance and greater throughput or speed.  This can be accomplished via a hard drive RAID controller or using software RAID.  The two most used RAID configurations are RAID level 1, which is essentially mirroring, and RAID level 5, which utilizes block-level striping with dedicated parity.

The following URL provides several visuals for each RAID configuration. Reference URL: http://www.ecs.umass.edu/ece/koren/architecture/Raid/basicRAID.html

Picture taken from: http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5258/5528362934_4be047e5b5.jpg

Week 2: Clear - Ergonomics and Business

Ergonomics is the concept of conforming working environments to our body limits in a safe, efficient, and comfortable manner.  Our bodies have limitations whereas we must position ourselves and utilize computers and desks so that there is no negative impact on our bodies.  Some tools to aid in ergonomics in the computing environment include, but are not limited to; ergonomic keyboards that are contoured to the natural positioning of our hands, mice that prevent repetitive excursions of the hand, and chairs to prevent prolonged awkward body postures.  In addition, there are software tools to aid in ergonomics, which are voice recognition software and desktop injury prevention software. 

This is important to the business environment due to the productivity impacts that are imminent from bad ergonomics.  As a business manager or leader, you are responsible for both your own, and your workers’, safety and comfort.  Good ergonomics will improve the efficiency of your business’s production in return for providing a safe and comfortable work environment.  Bad ergonomics in the office environment can result in injuries or illness, loss of productivity and employee satisfaction. As an example, prolonged use of computer monitors can result in eyestrain, which then can result in headaches and illness.  One way to prevent eyestrain is by utilizing the “20/20” rule, wherein you give your eyes a short break every twenty (20) minutes by focusing on something twenty (20) feet away.

The following URL from Valdosta State University explains how good ergonomics equates to good economics.

Reference URL: http://www.valdosta.edu/finadmin/safety/ergonomics/BusinessErgonomics.shtml  

Picture taken from http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2068/1599676842_1ca1062c91_m.jpg  (Creative Commons)

Week 1: Clear - Getting started

This is my first post in this Spring 2012 semester of ISM3004, Computing in the Business Environment.  I look forward to all the projects and information to be learned.  I just finished attending the first Live Meeting of the semester and it was very helpful.  I like the live interaction of it.  Since I am an online business program student, some of my classes may not offer the live virtual interactive sessions.  I kind of like how this class requires blog posts on a  public forum, Blogger.  The blog can be private or public, but keeping it public seems better, because it will allow others to learn from my class learning.

Also, I am a first semester UF student, enrolled in the Online Business Program.  I graduated from Seminole State College a month ago with an AA majoring in Business Administration.  This is my first semester at UF and I have been impressed with the faculty and content.  Until next week or before...

--proud gator and dad