INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS and IT SECURITY

On Intellectual Property Rights:

The 21st century is driven by ideas - ideas that changed our lifestyles. No other living thing was able to govern the world in ways that humans do. Today is our time more than ever. It is our era.

The concept of property rights dates back to time immemorial and is mostly limited to what can be touched or seen. Land, physical capital and money are considered properties. But as we learn to utilize our most precious resource, which is our mind, we discover new things that makes our lives easier as much as what a plow or a piece of land can do for us. Going to our present time, and not delving too far, the Word Processor I use in typing this blog is virtually as valuable as paper and pen and whoever made this one deserves to be given credit just as the pen or paper manufacturer deserves to be compensated. Recently, this sense of human justice formally gave rise to what we call Intellectual Property Rights. Intellectual property (IP) is a term referring to a number of distinct types of legal monopolies over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law.[1] Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and esigns. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets in some jurisdictions.

Of all types of intellectual products, IT related ones garners the most attention for the controversies they raise. No other piece of work can be as easily stolen as a binary-coded piece of work. Just copy and paste. Copy and install. Record and sell.

Many people and critics find it abusive to give license for these types of monopolies but this incentive system has its merits. A joint research project of the WIPO and the United Nations University measuring the impact of IP systems on six Asian countries found "a positive correlation between the strengthening of the IP system and subsequent economic growth."

On IT Security

Computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to remain accessible and productive to its intended users. The terms computer system security, means the collective processes and mechanisms by which sensitive and valuable information and services are protected from publication, tampering or collapse by unauthorized activities or untrustworthy individuals and unplanned events respectively.[2]
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For me, IPR is just another way of giving justice to the rights of beings. Ideas are hard to execute. It takes lots of effort. The simplest way one can recognize a person’s inteeelectual property is by recognition of his work. No one has the right to tell the world that a piece of idea is his own if it is not. It is simple lying. Going to the more complex matters of monopolies under IPR, I consider the “incentive” argument sufficient to justify it. The lifeblood of today’s business growth lies in innovation. But there is a word of caution; that important discoveries like those in the fields of medicine shall never be monopolized without proper subjunction because the same justice whereon IPR was built is being contradicted when the same human welfare is being put at danger.

Simultaneous with the proliferation of intellectual products especially in IT came a very big problem. IT Security Threats. I myself is a victim of malicious software. Everday I visit the internet, my Kaspersky Antivirus never fails to alert me of an intruding virus. There is also this instance where I failed to realized that I was fooled into believing that when I download a a particular data it would install the OpenOffice Applications. To my surprise it simply corrupted my Windows Office Appplications. It was a terrible experience.
Sometimes I even doubt the real sources of these malicious deeds. Could it be possible that the very same Antivirus companies that sell these antiviruses are the ones who actually spread these viruses? I can never tell.


[1] ^ Intellectual Property Licensing: Forms and Analysis, by Richard Raysman, Edward A. Pisacreta and Kenneth A. Adler. Law Journal Press, 1999-2008. ISBN 973-58852-086-9
[2] Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm

ENTERPRISE BUSINESS SYSTEMS

The three enterprise-wide operations Customer Relationships, Resource Planning, and Supply Chain require a unique focus for each and, thus, a unique system to support it, but they all share one common goal: to get the entire organization to line up and head in the same direction.
Today, customers are faced with more choices. They have high bargaining power. The e-commerce allows information from suppliers to be readily available. With the click of a mouse they can switch companies. Consequently, customer relationship has become a company’s very valuable asset. It is more important than the company’s plant, websites, and even employees. Strategies should address how to find and maintain the most profitable customers.
Managing the full range of the customer relationship involves two related objectives: one, to provide the organization and all of its customer-facing employees with a single, complete view of every customer at every touch-point and across all channels; and, two, to provide the customer with a single, complete view of the company and its extended channels.
Customer Relationships Management (CRM) software allow professionals to store and review past customer experience and data that will guide them in future dealings. Information can be gathered through phone, fax, e-mail, kiosks, retail stores and personal contact. CRM softwares store data in a common customer database that integrates all information and makes it available throughout the company via internet, intranet, or other network links for sales, marketing and other CRM applications.
There are three phases of CRM: acquisition – adding new customers by doing a superior job of contact management, enhancement – help keep customers happy by supporting superior service from a responsive networked team of sales and service specialists and business partners, and retention – rewarding the most profitable customers.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the technological backbone of e-business, an enterprise-wide transaction framework with links into sales order processing, inventory management and control, production and distribution planning, and finance.
ERP gives a company an integrated real-time view of its core business processes. ERP systems track business resources (such as cash, raw materials, and production capacity), and the status commitments made by the business (such as customer orders, purchase orders, and employee payroll), no matter which department has entered the data into the system. But what are the benefits of ERP? There are many including quality and efficiency, decreased costs, decision support, and enterprise agility.
Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a cross-functional inter-enterprise system that uses information technology to help support and manage the links between some of a company’s key business processes and those of its suppliers, customers, and business partners. The goal of SCM is to create a fast, efficient, and low-cost network of business relationships, or supply chain, to get a company’s products from concept to market.

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These types of management systems are not new for me. In fact I encounter these every time I make my grocery purchase in SM North Edsa as I swipe my SM Advantage Card. It contains my name, and most probably they list the things I buy and the frequency and times of my visit. My Healthy Options Loyalty Card is another proof that these systems are benefiting both the firm and me. As a loyal customer I get 10% rebate or discount and that is a great incentive for me to go back into their store and buy more of their products.
Information Technology has done tremendous benefits to managing suppliers, customers and monitoring the day-to-day activities of the firm. It presents great costs, challenge and benefits. As a word of caution any IT project requires initial planning and evaluation in order to asses whether these systems would profit the firm.

BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS and METHODS AND MODELS FOR EVALUATING IT PROJECTS

On Business Process Improvements

An organization like a firm is similar to an organism - an animal that has to adapt to its environment like the ocean or the forest. A company has its external environment such as political climate, consumer preferences, technological, and economic conditions. In today's globally and technologically competitive environments, we find many firms restructure in order to thrive. One way to achieve this is trough Business Process Reengineering. Reengineering is the radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality, service and speed. Because the focus of reengineering is on process rather than function, reengineering generally leads to a shift away from a strong vertical structure to one emphasizing stronger horizontal coordination and greater flexibility in responding to changes in the environment.
Reengineering changes the way managers think about how work is done in their organizations. Rather than focusing on narrow jobs structured into distinct, functional departments, they emphasize core processes that cut horizontally across the company and involve teams of employees working to provide value directly to customers.
A process is an organized group of related tasks and activities that work together to transform inputs into outputs and create value. Common process involves product development, order fulfillment, and customer service. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a way of reengineering businesses in terms of the quality and services they provide. It is a management system for a customer-focused organization that involves all employees in continual improvement of all aspects of the organization. TQM finds out what customers want and try to meet their needs and expectations. Benchmarking and Continuous Improvement (implementation of small incremental improvements in business at an ongoing basis) are two important aspects of TQM.
Other companies today pursue highly ambitious quality goals to demonstrate their commitment to improving quality. For example six sigma, popularized by Motorolla and General Electric, specifies a goal of no more than 3.4 defects per million parts. ISO is another set of rules for business process. It provides a set of standardized requirements for a quality management system regardless of what the user organization does, its size, or whether it is in the private. To sum up, BPR produces significant cost reduction and improved customer satisfaction.

On Models and Methods for Evaluating IT Projects

IT projects are seriously expensive to implement. Intelligent planning is definitely required but there is still something that must be done during or even before the planning stage which is the project evaluation. There are many ways of evaluating an IT project.

Total Cost of Ownership:
It is a financial estimate. its purpose is to help consumers and enterprise managers
determine direct and indirect costs of a product or system. It is a management accounting concept that can be used to evaluate IT project. Computer and hardware programs, operation expenses and long term expenses are major classifications of its elements. Computer and Hardware programs may include the upfront costs. Operation expenses relates to the testing costs, insurance, and license renewal. Long term expenses include
decommissioning, upgrades and replacement costs.

Return on Investment (ROI):
It is the percent of profit as compared to the total investment.
ROI = Net Profit / Total Investment
A realistic ROI includes intangible benefits. the only problem is that it is not easily measured.

Cost-Benefit Analysis:
A technique designed to test the feasibility of a project by enumerating the costs of a project and subtracting that from the expected benefits throughout the useful life of the undertaking. If the benefits exceeds the costs then the project makes sense.

Feasibility Study:
Is a preliminary study where the information needs of prospective users and the resource requirements costs, benefits and feasibility of a proposed project are determined.
There are two types: operational and economic feasibility. The former asks whether there would be resistance to change. Is the management supportive of the project? Are employees involved in formulation? Are users willing to adopt? The latter is about costs and benefits. It is economically feasible if benefits exceed the costs.

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Business Process Reengineering and IT Project Evaluation can be modified and applied in day to day living. Like businesses (through TQM), individuals can benefit by restructuring their daily tasks and by improving on the quality of their work even in
small amounts through time. By accumulating small improvements on our daily tasks we easily get used to it. And before we know it we have totally changed the way we do things as opposed to sudden changes that ends up unsuccessful. Try to improve things little by little on a continuous basis like getting up 2 minutes earlier each day to avoid being late. In just a week you wake up almost 15 min. earlier.
Successful students also try to weigh the costs and benefits in their undertakings. Cost benefit analysis is indispensable and I think most of us do it on a daily basis. Think about chatting or watching TV late at night. The benefits obtained from that would not cover up for the lost learning that should have been gained in class if the student were not late. Sometime ago I knew I would be 15 min late for an exam if i ride the jeepney so I thought twice if I would rather spend 100 pesos in taxi or ride a 10 Peso jeepney. I knew that 15min of exam time is more precious than the 90 peso gained by riding the jeepney-- not mentioning the mere intangible mental and physical inconvenience inside the jeepney. It can spell the difference between acing the exam or not.

Systems Analysis

DEVELOPING BUSINESS SYSTEMS


Personal businesses in the Philippines such as street stores or home retail shops can get away with one or three personnel manning the store. Transactions are localized and there is no need for a complex business structure. Too much for a sari-sari store to employ formalized accounting software or websites. But as the business grows and reaches customers beyond cities or territories it is inexpensively convenient to employ information technology like the Web. How will global companies keep expanding into new countries with all consumers sites updated in the local language without bordering on the impractical? How can companies know which information systems to spend with giving them the most return from each cent?

There is a way and it is a problem-solving process called the systems approach. When system approach is applied to the development of information systems solutions to business problems, it is called information systems development or application development. The analysis of problem involves the following interrelated activities: 1. Recognize and define a problem or opportunity using systems thinking. 2. Develop and evaluate alternative solutions 3. Select system solution that best meets the requirements. 4. Design the selected system solution. 5. Implement and evaluate the success of the designed system.

Using systems thinking to understand a problem or opportunity is one of the most important aspects of the systems approach. It is being able to see the interrelationship of the components rather than linear cause and effect. It is modeling the process of change rather than getting still “snapshots” of change whenever they occur. Systems thinking can be illustrated through the sales process of a business.

There are many approaches to systems analysis and the “life cycle” approach is the most common. There are five steps in the life cycle approach based on the stages of systems approach:
System investigation –Feasibility Study
Systems Analysis – Functional Requirement
Systems Design – System Specifications
Systems Implementation - Operational System
Systems Maintenance – Improved System

Systems analysis can be applied in business as well as in my personal life. It summarizes how problems should be systematically approached in order to devise a comprehensive solution. It lets someone be on top of the case and efficiently solve problems in non-disruptive ways as may be required. As a student, systems analysis will not only improve my academic performance but will allow me to balance it with my social and extracurricular life. By carefully analyzing, scheduling and placing control methods combined with feedback mechanism I can develop a routine realistic enough to be followed. Unlike linear routines that have to be followed strictly, system analysis can give me a dynamic approach to my schedules and activities allowing it to improve as time goes by hence making it more useful.

Social Media

Several years ago when we were about to enter college, my friend set up his first online blog site and it became an instant hit with my other batchmates. Others followed soon.
Here are just some of the many social media that my classmates started to use about then:
Networking: Facebook. Friendster
Blogs: Livejournal, Xanga, Blogger
MicroBlog: Twitter, Plurk.. and many others.
Others also use Youtube as a way of posting personal opinions with the aid of videos. They create their own Youtube accounts and narrate (monologue) their own emotions, adventures or express it in creative forms using video elements inciting opinion and action.
My friend is a prolific writer, a computer whiz and a great traveler in his own country. It was during first year that I start to notice how these online diaries created a new way of experiencing people and their ideas even though we do not see them as often anymore. Though he studied in Singapore and we never met for almost 5 years it is as if I am walking beside the person along with his adventures every time I read his blog. There he talked about his daily school encounters abroad, his passions, emotions and great experiences. He talks about movie, local politics and essays. He publicizes his stands on issues regarding our country. He keeps on posting countless photos, videos and links that become flooded with comments each day. He is one of our popular classmates and up to now he comes to our attention time and time again unlike the others who seemed to have been lost simply because they failed to keep their online diaries.
The web has now become the only feasible environ I have known to once again feel the presence of my busy acquaintances. Gone were the times where old friends meet along the way and with great enthusiasms “slap” each other’s hands in excitement. Today we meet people everyday in our cars, malls, or in the very comfort of our own homes anytime. Online blogs have virtually empowered people with virtual ubiquity.
At first I thought blogs are just another fancy tools people use to make themselves popular. But later in my college life I noticed how business establishments utilize these kinds of social networking and web based social media in order to promote their products or sell ideas. They even used their blog sites to sell products and become hubs or trade centers.
Setting aside the business perspective, there is another very important role social media played in our country for the past year. During the height of “Ondoys” wrath blogs and networking sites became indispensable in saving lives. They became good sources of timely information, cheap and considerable reliable.
Social media has its advantages from making money, informal learning and sharing opinions. It is a media designed to disseminate through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. With regards to its significance it supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. One notable example is Wikipedia. With Wikipedia’s many online technologies it is able to set up a very useful information database that is being updated very often at an impressive rate by thousands of tens of thousands of authors around the world.
Hence social media is not just another fad we would soon get over with but is a very important tool for us to share information in times of disaster and peace and even breathe life to our everyday experience allowing others to conveniently enjoy what we experience in this busy days.