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DSS News
D. J. Power, Editor
February 11, 2007 -- Vol. 8, No. 3
A Free Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
approximately 1,950 Subscribers
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Check the "Transforming GE Real Estate with DSS"
case at DSSResources.COM
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Featured:
* Ask Dan: Is Information Technology transforming the
U.S. Heartland?
* DSS Conferences
* DSS News Releases
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Check the interview with Henry Morris "Decision support
and analytic applications" at DSSResources.COM
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Ask Dan!
Is Information Technology transforming the U.S. Heartland?
by Dan Power
Editor, DSSResources.com
The Midwest United States chapter of the Association for Information
Systems (MWAIS) is hosting a conference in May 2007 with the theme
"Information Technology: Transforming the Heartland". The 2nd Annual
Conference of the Midwest AIS will be held in Springfield, Illinois
May 18-19, 2007 and is hosted by the College of Business and
Management at the University of Illinois at Springfield. MWAIS 2007
will provide a stimulating environment to facilitate the sharing of
ideas. About 100 participants are expected from throughout the
Midwest U.S., neighboring states, Canadian provinces, and beyond. The
MWAIS 2007 website is http://mis.uis.edu/MWAIS2007.
MWAIS serves Association for Information Systems Members across the
Midwest from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
MWAIS serves the needs of Information Technology thought leaders in
the U.S. Heartland. Many of the eastern states in the region led the
U.S. industrial revolution and the praire states were leaders in the
global agrarian revolution. The region is a mix of what Joel Gareau
(1981) called the Foundary and the Breadbasket. Beginning in the
mid-1990s, the Internet and the World-wide Web provided the
information technology infrastructure to transform business,
government, and the lives of the residents of the region.
The U.S. Heartland has an abundant supply of water from rivers and
the U.S. Great Lakes, fertile soil, mineral resources, especially
iron and coal, a good transportation system, and a well educated
population. More than 17% of the population in the region have at
least bachelors degrees and the states have many excellent
Universities. The problem has been the changing employment needs in
agriculture and manufacturing, but the Information Revolution or
Internet Age has provided new job opportunities and changed the
migration patterns and demographic trends of the region. Today we
have outstanding access to information technologies and Internet
connectivity. Although the weather is still generally cold in the
winter and hot in the summer throughout the region, modern climate
control, immersive video games, web surfing and video chat have
helped conquer the weather.
What is the impact of IT?
Information Technology broadly refers to computing hardware including
PDAs, GPS devices, RFID, networks, application software like Decision
Support systems and computer operating systems. The general impacts
from Information Technology that are occurring globally like
e-business, e-commerce and e-government are also positively impacting
the Midwest United States. The rate of change is of course varied
across the region. Specific impacts are more interesting and suggest
the scope and magnitude of the transformation that is occurring. Let
me suggest 25 impacts of Information Technology:
1. Changing business models of book stores, publishing, newspapers
and media companies
2. Changing decision making processes, especially decentralizing
decision making
3. Changing population migration patterns, especially reducing farm
to city migration
4. Creating good jobs, manufacturing high technology products, using
information technology, and providing IT services
5. Creating new crimes like phishing and cybertheft, but helping
catch criminals
6. Enhancing and expanding distance learning, especialy in Higher
Education but potentially in K-12
7. Facilitating creation of virtual communities
8. Facilitating Interfirm coordination and control
9. Impacting citizenship and participation in elections, residents
are using email and the Web to further their political activity
10. Improving government revenue collection and law enforcement
11. Improving information distribution, more information is available
with wider dissemination, and faster access
12. Improving patient outcomes in Hospitals and clinics
13. Improving quality of life of residents, especially in rural
communities
14. Increasing efficiency of global product supply chains
15. Increasing entertainment options, especially virtual worlds,
online gambling, music and video
16. Increasing productivity of organizations
17. Increasing training needs, especially in the use of information
technology
18. Providing access to a broader range of goods and services
19. Providing new tools for scholarly research
20. Reducing layers of management and hence managerial overhead costs
21. Reducing privacy and increasing our access to information about
other people
22. Reducing the need for cash and hence improving transaction
processing
23. Reducing transportation costs
24. Stimulating entrepreneurship, especially increasing the number of
technology and home based businesses
25. Supporting geographically distributed teams
In the Midwest U.S., firms like General Motors encourage car dealers
to buy online; Ameritrade in Omaha, Nebraska has helped create a more
efficient market for trading stocks; farmers are using global
positioning systems and spatial DSS to gather, store, view, and
analyze data for making better crop production decisions; Speedpass
(www.speedpass.com) is making it easier and faster to pay for
purchases at participating Exxon and Mobil stations; and Midwest
University professors are studying the impact of information
technology and applying IT to real business, government, and
organizational problems.
The so-called digital divide seems to be narrowing in Midwest U.S.,
but more needs to be done to realize the full benefits of information
technology. We all need to become more aware of possible changes from
information technology.
The keynote speakers at MWAIS 2007 are Blake Ives and Ron Swift.
Blake holds the C.T. Bauer Chair in Business Leadership in the School
of Business at the University of Houston. Ron is vice president of
Cross-Industry Solutions for Teradata, a division of NCR.
Come debate the impact of information technology in Springfield, IL
at MWAIS 2007. Completed papers (2500 words) should be emailed to the
program co-chairs by February 13; Research-in-progress papers (750
words) and panel proposals should be submitted by February 26, 2007.
Contact Program Co-Chairs: Arkalgud Ramaprasad, University of
Illinois at Chicago, email: prasad@uic.edu and Matthew Nelson,
Illinois State University, email: mlnelso@ilstu.edu.
As always your comments and suggestions are appreciated. This Ask
Dan! is research-in-progress.
References
Garreau, J., The Nine Nations of North America, Avon Books, 1981.
Please note: Dan Power, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA,
is President of Midwest AIS (MWAIS). For more information check
http://plone.aisnet.org/chapters/mwais/ .
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Purchase Dan Power's DSS FAQ book
83 frequently asked questions about computerized DSS
http://dssresources.com/dssbookstore/power2005.html
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DSS Conferences
1. DAMA +Meta-Data, Boston, March 4-8, 2007. Check
http://www.wilshireconferences.com/MD2007/index.html .
2. ISCRAM 2007, May 13-16, 2007 Delft, The Netherlands.
Check http://www.iscram.org .
3. AMCIS 2007, Americas Conference on Information Systems,
Keystone, CO USA, August 9-12, 2007. SIG DSS mini-tracks.
Check http://www.biz.colostate.edu/amcis07/ .
4. DaWaK 2007, 9th International Conference on Data
Warehousing and Knowledge Discovery, Regensburg, Germany,
September 3-7, 2007. Full papers due: April 13, 2007.
Check http://www.dexa.org/ .
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DSS News Releases - Jan. 29 - Feb. 9, 2007
Read them at DSSResources.COM and search the DSS News Archive
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SearchDataManagement.com and IT Week.
02/08/2007 Business Objects and Netezza expand relationship to
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02/07/2007 Adaptive Planning releases Version 3.5 of its colaborative
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02/07/2007 MicroStrategy rated #1 in customer loyalty, according to
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02/07/2007 Higher education institutions employ actionable business
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02/06/2007 Sun hosts annual Worldwide Education and Research
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02/06/2007 LaBarge selects Information Builders as its business
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02/06/2007 CIOs play waiting game when hiring.
02/05/2007 Hyperion provides hosted BI to universities worldwide as
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02/02/2007 Cipher Systems releases upgrades to Knowledge.Works
enterprise competitive intelligence software.
02/01/2007 DEMO 07 Conference explored mobile computing, the Global
Internet community, and sophisticated search technologies.
01/31/2007 University of Chicago students and alumni rethink 'group
website' concept and create ZedZone.com.
01/31/2007 SAP bridges business gaps with new sales and operations
planning application (SAP xSOP).
01/30/2007 SAS in leaders quadrant for Gartner business intelligence
platforms magic quadrant.
01/30/2007 Bling Software launches first Ajax client for mobile
handset.
01/30/2007 GoWare launches DoMo Mobile Portal at DEMO to put users in
control of their mobile web content experience.
01/30/2007 JasperSoft announces globalization of entire open source
business intelligence suite.
01/29/2007 Oracle announces general availability of Oracle(R)
Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 10g release 3.
01/29/2007 FAST introduces business intelligence built on search.
01/29/2007 Experian launches the only mobile application in the U.S.
that allows professionals to check business credit on the go.
01/29/2007 Canada's SaskTel successfully monitors customer churn and
improves service with Hyperion BI solutions.
01/29/2007 Karneval uses Teradata to expand.
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DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2007 by D. J. Power. Please send your
questions to daniel.power@dssresources.com
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