Chapter 1 - The Importance of MIS

The Digital Revolution started in 1970s, this became a big change for companies, individuals, and society as a whole. This change is still vague to people at the time, they only knew that it will make society more efficient. In 1972, Scientist Gordon Bell created Bell’s Law, it states “a new computer class forms roughly each decade establishing a new industry”. And just as he predicted, every 10 years since 1970, new platforms, industries, networks and information systems arise.

This digital world is changing and growing exponentially according to Moore’s Law. When you are purchasing a computer, you don’t buy it because of how fast it is. The cost of data processing is dwindling greatly and is approaching to zero.

Metcalfe’s Law states that “the value of a network is equal to the square of the number of users connected to it. Network will continue to increase as more digital devices are connected. There is a dramatic change in internet user since 1990 that further sharpen Metcalfe’s argument. Large internet companies such as Google, Amazon, and Ebay are so successful as the network of users are increasing rapidly.

Not only the numbers of users on the network that is changing but also the speed. According to Nielsen’s Law, networks connection speed will increase by 50% each year. Youtube is an of this law, when the company first started, there weren’t many users and not a lot of videos were shared. By 2006, the company blew up as the speed of network did too. It was then sold for $1.65 billion dollars.

Kryder’s Law says that “The storage density on magnetic disks is increasing at an exponential rate”. As storage is increasing exponentially, the cost of storing date is approaching zero.

Ultimately, how does one attain job security? “only job security exists is a marketable skill and the courage to use it”. According to RAND, a corporation in California, the marketable skill sets needed in 21^st century are abstract thinking, systems thinking, collaboration, and ability to experiment. Abstract Reasoning is the ability to construct a model. System thinking is the ability to envision the components of a system and connect the inputs and outputs among those components. Collaboration is being able to work with a group of two or more people to achieve a common goal. Experimentation is creating and testing an idea that is consistent with available resources.

MIS stands for management information systems, can be defined as the way organizations use information system to be more efficient at the workplace. The difference between information system and information technology is that you cannot buy information systems while you can for information technology. One can buy a software or hardware but cannot buy a predesigned procedure.

Components of information systems are computer hardware, software data, procedures, and people. These are display in every information system. An example is you editing a photo, you are using hardware (computer, storage disk, keyboard and monitor), software (Photoshop, other editing software), data (the photo), procedures (methods use to start program and edit the picture), and the people (you).

What is information? Information in basic definition is “knowledge derived from data”. Another definition is “information is data presented in a meaningful text”. Where are information from? Human get information from collecting data or searching data available to them. The five necessary data characteristics are accurate, timely, relevant, just sufficient, and worth its cost.

Of course if the data presented are inaccurate, we would have no use for it. Businesses and organizations rely heavily on accuracy their information systems. As future user of information systems, we need to take into consideration what Web page or sources are reliable and not rely on how nicely presented the report or query is. Make-sure you cross-check the data you obtain.

The information needs to be presented in a timely manner.  A report that is turned in a month late is worthless. Time can be measured by both calendar or events.

Data should be relevant to the event of case you are working on both to the context and to the subject.

Data needs to be sufficient. There is so much date given as you move up in management level, so you need to learn how to sort out which important data do you need and which to ignore.

Data comes with costs. The costs are developing, operating, and maintaining information system. And also cost of paying you to process the information. Because these data have costs, you need to identify an appropriated relationship between the cost and value of that data