Jay Gillette

Accenture Challenge: Advice from CICS Alumni

Once again, this is the time of the annual Accenture Challenge
at the Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS) at Ball State University.

This is a case study competition involving teams of CICS master's candidates. They work all week on a technical and organizational problem, then present their solutions before panels of judges from CICS faculty and Accenture consultants, usually themselves CICS alumni. Because of the generosity of the sponsoring company, there are modest cash prizes for first and second place teams, and the recognition that accrues from winning a stringent professional competition.

The Center's candidates and loyal alumni have often blogged their reflections and offered advice. Here are some of their posts:

Weblog Community isn't a single person's blog--see some great example weblogs in this community: Joel Patrick, Vish Malhotra, Brian Dockter

There's a misapprehension that blogging is somebody getting his resentments and inane comments out for whoever stops at his site somewhere on the Internet. Certainly there are immature people all over the Internet who are armed with a keyboard and an Internet Service Provider and the rest is history.

Yet a weblog community like cicsworld.org is a blogging site that aggregates a whole set of weblogs into one community. This site, arising out of the research of the graduate program Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS) is the community of over 50 bloggers who write on matters of interest to information and communication sciences. The site was the brainchild of Joel Patrick, who was its original architect.

Right now a number of bloggers are working in community on topics such as the information renaissance, Web 2.0, plagiarism as an issue in the work of scientists and other scholars, the European renaissance, and much more.

Weblog Community isn't a single person's blog--see some great example weblogs in this community: Joel Patrick, Vish Malhotra, Brian Dockter

There's a misapprehension that blogging is somebody getting his resentments and inane comments out for whoever stops at his site somewhere on the Internet. Certainly there are immature people all over the Internet who are armed with a keyboard and an Internet Service Provider and the rest is history.

Yet a weblog community like cicsworld.org is a blogging site that aggregates a whole set of weblogs into one community. This site, arising out of the research of the graduate program Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS) is the community of over 50 bloggers who write on matters of interest to information and communication sciences. The site was the brainchild of Joel Patrick, who was its original architect.

Right now a number of bloggers are working in community on topics such as the information renaissance, Web 2.0, plagiarism as an issue in the work of scientists and other scholars, the European renaissance, and much more.

“The Nature of Technology”—new ideas from Complexity Economist Brian Arthur

I have followed the work of economist Brian Arthur since the 1990s, and quoted him in my own work. He built reputation as an interdisciplinary thinker, and was involved with the complexity science group centered on the Santa Fe Institute.

In dealing with complex phenomena, and complexity itself as a concept, we need to avoid the trap of oversimplifying, and simplistic thinking in general. Some things can’t be made simple, but they can be made clear.

Clarity is the great ally of complexity.

Career advice: What you actually learn in graduate school--and is networking a "necessary evil"?

Here's some professional advice from a column
in the Chronicle for Higher Education "Careers" section.

This is an interview with an academic who moved on to a job in a think tank
research institute:

Scott Keeter, who earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, successfully navigated the transition from an academic job to a quasi-academic career in 2002. After 24 years as a faculty member in political science studying public opinion, political participation, and voting behavior, he joined the Pew Research Center and is now its director of survey research and chief methodologist.

See below for a good view on professional networking, following a kind of odd question about it.

Next, there's a quote with an emphasis on what you really learn in graduate school, and how that helps your career:

Directing your attention to "The Attention Economy"

In 2001, Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck published
The Attention Economy [link to wikipedia's entry on the concept]
through Harvard Business School Press.

Here's the money quote:

"In postindustrial societies, attention has become a more valuable currency than the kind you store in bank accounts. The vast majority of products have become cheaper and more abundant as the sum total of human wealth increases. Venture capital dollars have multiplied like breeding hamsters. The problems for businesspeople lie on both sides of the attention equation: how to get and hold the attention of consumers, stockholders, potential employees, and the like, and how to parcel out their own attention in the face of overwhelming options. People and companies that do this, succeed. The rest fail. Understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success. Welcome to the attention economy." (p. 3)

This book and its theoretical approach tell us what to do after we go beyond providing information access. Now the work is to get the attention of those awash in information flows. It's worth your attention.

JEG

Read C. Tuite's post on rational systems security and how to use email "Subject" lines for real information

As usual, Charles Tuite's blog "Seeing To It"
has nailed another key issue in contemporary information science.

He is one of the thought-leaders produced by the Center for Information and Communication Sciences
master's program at Ball State University.

I recommend you read in its entirety his latest post, "A New Coat of Paint"
Tuite says:

[A]t least a passing comment is needed to address the seemingly endless stream of FUD ["Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt"] coming out of the security segment of the IT world regarding social networking and the associated softwares. The simple fact of life is that the only absolutely secure software is one never installed, and the only safe network is one powered down. There are varying degrees of security and hardening, but it is more guaranteed by the policies and implementations of technology than by any one software.

Note the force of the well-written phrase: "The simple fact of life is that the only absolutely secure software is one never installed, and the only safe network is one powered down."

CICS Bloggers--Charles Tuite's "Seeing to It"; Amy Clevenger's "Rolling Relic"

I'm taking time in a busy period to call attention to some great bloggers
in the community of interesting people that make up the Center for Information and Communication Sciences.
They are Charles Tuite and Amy Clevenger:

1. Alumnus Charles Tuite has a great blog called "Seeing to It"
He hasn't said this, but I reckon the name comes from his university login, which I see a lot--"ctuite"--and I have no doubt he gets told "see to it" often, by the people who recognize (and exploit) his competence, including me...

Here follows a great quote from his continuing reflections on technology and design, often inspired by watching his smart daughter, who's a Toddler, First Class. This is from an entry he calls "Sophie Tech":

Economist Robert Solow--"Places with distinctive identities are more likely to prosper"

I'm at the Intelligent Communities Forum
conference in New York City.

Lots of discussion here about how communities
can survive and prosper in the 21st century information economy.

I found a great quote attributed to Robert Solow, economist:

"Over the long term, places with strong, distinctive identities are more likely to prosper than places without them. Every place must identify its strongest most distinctive features and develop them or run the risk of being all things to all persons and nothing special to any...Livability is not a middle-class luxury. It is an economic imperative."

Source is the Wikipedia article on Solow, with quotes at bottom of article

Live blogging--ITERA/ACUTA Conference--Miles O'Brien Keynote: New Media

Live blogging--ITERA/ACUTA Conference in Atlanta.

ITERA is International Telecommunications Education and Research Association,
holding a joint conference with ACUTA,
now known as the Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education.

Miles O'Brien is keynote speaker. He is demonstrating via a multimedia presentation on stage.

He has brought in via BGAN, a blogging correspondent from the Himalayan mountains in Nepal
Here's a definition of BGAN:

Broadband Global Area Network or BGAN for short, is a global Satellite Internet Network with telephony using portable terminals.