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Lesson 1: Introduction to Information Systems (IS)
What Is Information?
As our world becomes increasingly digitized (i.e, using digital media), we are producing more and more information. This is particularly true of organizations that are increasingly dependent on the power of information technologies to run their businesses. Indeed, there are some businesses such as Amazon, Google, and eBay for whom information technology is their business!
Video 1.1. Did You Know? Version 6.0.
NARRATOR: We're all searching for ways to stay ahead. To gain footing in a culture that's shifting at a mind boggling velocity. It's not easy when the foundation of everything is being seismically rocked.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amount of urban infrastructure built over the past 4,000 YEARS is the same we'll need to build...in the next 40 years]Where and how we live, the way we communicate, [ON-SCREEN TEXT: The number of mobile devices NOW EXCEEDS the number of people on Earth] [ON-SCREEN TEXT: In the next 5 years, the number of connected devices will increase EXPONENTIALLY] even how we carry out business.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: New businesses can be up and running in LESS THAN A MONTH ... including your competition]Making the move to more nimble and adaptive culture is essential.[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Close to 70% of companies that were on the Fortune 1000 list ten years ago have now VANISHED] Unable to adapt, once-pioneering companies are crumbling, or have disappeared altogether. When Kodak's iconic core product was threatened, they took massive hits by failing to jump on emerging market opportunities or react to inevitable market swings. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Once commanding 90% of film sales, KODAK only recently emerged from a 2012 bankruptcy filing] With a once-revolutionary business model, Borders made changes in the wrong direction and failed to adapt.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: BORDERS ... added superstores instead of ebooks, hired people who knew nothing about books, outsourced their website. R.I.P. BORDERS 1971-2011]
Unprepared for change, these giant fell. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: "... when the rate of change inside an institution becomes slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight. - Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of GE"]
What does the future of your story look like? Innovation means being open to change and opportunity, to see your company as a dynamic system. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Innovators - P&G is ranked 23rd in innovation globally - spending more on R&D than most of its competitors] Innovation also means cultivating a healthy work environment where all employees excel in strategy, execution, and organization. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Happy and engaged employees leads to: lower labor costs, lower health costs, and a 240% rise in performance-related business outcomes]
Engaged employees create higher net profits and five times higher ROI for shareholders. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: 5X HIGHER ROI] Embracing the ethos of change and innovation allows companies not only to survive, but prosper. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: When its stock plummeted in 1996, APPLE TOOK RISKS and changed its business strategies. In the first quarter of 2012, there were more iPhones sold on planet Earth than BABIES BORN]
Armed with this knowledge, how can your company rise to the challenge of inevitable change and thrive for tomorrow?
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: CHANGE TO THRIVE - Did you know]
A 2003 report (University of California at Berkley) estimated that the world had produced almost 1,400 terabytes of information in office documents. How much is a terabyte? Let’s put it in terms that we can all relate to:
- The U.S. Library of Congress contains 17,000,000 books totaling approximately 136 terabytes of information.
- 1,400 terabytes / 136 terabytes = 10.3 Library of Congress book collections.
- 10.3 x 17,000,000 books = 175 million books worth of information produced in 2003 alone.
Those numbers have only grown in the time since the report was published, as has the demand for effective information systems to manage that information.
| Byte | 1 byte: A single character |
|---|---|
| Kilobyte (KB) | 1,000 bytes, or 103 bytes | 2 Kilobytes: A typewritten page;
100 Kilobytes: A low-resolution photograph |
| Megabyte (MB) | 1,000,000 bytes, or 106 bytes |
1 Megabyte: A small novel; 2 Megabytes: A high-resolution photograph; 5 Megabytes: The complete works of Shakespeare; 10 Megabytes: A minute of high-fidelity sound; 100 Megabytes: 1 meter of shelved books; 500 Megabytes: A CD-ROM |
| Gigabyte (GB) | 1,000,000,000 bytes, or 109 bytes |
1 Gigabyte: A pickup truck filled with books or 20 Yards of Books on a Shelf; 20 Gigabytes: A good collection of the works of Beethoven; 100 Gigabytes: A library floor of academic journals |
| Terabyte (TB) | 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1012 bytes |
1 Terabyte: 50,000 trees made into paper and printed; 2 Terabytes: An academic research library; 10 Terabytes: The printed collections of the U.S. Library of Congress; 400 Terabytes: National Climactic Data Center (NOAA) Database |
| Petabyte (PB) | 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1015 bytes |
1 Petabyte: 3 years of EOS data (2001) or 20 Million Four-Drawer Filing Cabinets Filled with Text; 2 Petabytes: All U.S. academic research libraries; 20 Petabytes: Production of all hard-disk drives in 1995; 200 Petabytes: All printed materials |
| Exabyte (EB) | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1018 bytes
2 Exabytes: Total volume of information generated in 1999 5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by human beings |
Information is all around us and we are constantly making use of information in all facets of our lives. Having access to the right information at the right time can often mean the difference between success and failure. For organizations, the need for timely, accurate, and accessible information is even more critical in today's highly competitive global economy. The term “big data” is used to describe the large volumes of information that companies capture, and terms such as "data analytics" and "data mining" describe the the refinement of the information. But what is information?