How to Bridge the Digital Divide?

The digital divide is a global problem, which several states have to face in their efforts to implement more e-governance. This article focuses on how a state can work to raise the level of the citizens' IT-skills so that citizens can become an active part of the information society. The focus is on how the digital divide is defined in accordance to a theoretical framework, present empirical data and a political perspective. In addition the existing political initiatives to bridge the digital divide in relation to the empirical findings and the theoretical definition will be assessed. This article illustrates the gap between the current public initiatives and the theoretical understanding of the digital divide.    
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5 components of an IT economic model

One of the steps identified in Real Time Enterprise Blog "9 Steps to a Virtual Oriented Utility" was the requirement to create an economic model. As we have been working with many CIO’s, we are finding that the discipline of creating and managing an economic model does not exist or is not understood.

The Economic Model for IT can be thought of as the Business & IT linkage of demand and supply. In particular, it is the interactive dynamics of consumption of IT resources by the business and the fulfillment behavior of processing by IT.


We coach CIO’s and their organizations to relate their service delivery (people, process and technology) as a digital supply chain. This supply chain must adhere and be managed against the IT economic model. Our experience in building a real time infrastructure led us to standardize 5 key components of our operational model to ensure we adhere to our economic model similar to how our business has to. Below outlines the 5 key components:

Demand Management – the continuous identification, documentation, tracking and measuring of day in the life of the business, what they expect, where there are problems today, and understand sensitivities to cost, bottlenecks, and timing constraints. In particular, service contracts defined in natural language that identify users, entitlement, expectations, geography, critical time windows, special business calendar events, and performance defined in terms of user experience.

Supply Management – the continuous identification, documentation and tracking through instrumentation to capture “objective” factual data of which users, using what applications, consume what app, server, network bandwidth, network QoS and storage resources for how long. Ensure you trend this over a period of time to accurately identify peaks, valleys and nominal growth.

Fit for Purpose Policies – It is essential that organizations trying to build a real time infrastructure or at least a more responsive IT platform and operation, incorporate an operating level of policy management of how the IT platform matches supply and demand at runtime. This should include factors of wall clock, trends, and service contract requirements matched optimally against runtime supply management trends. It is this operating level discipline that can radically reduce waste, unnecessary costs, lower capital investment WHILE improving service levels. It is here that most organizations fail to implement, execute or adopt such a granular discipline, instead firms standardize infrastructure from bottom up, use rule of thumb sizing and define service levels in terms of recovery time objectives or availability only.

Role of ITIL/ITSMF – ITIL 3.0 and the IT Service Management Framework are excellent guides for creating consistent end to end processes related to delivery IT as a service. They are not in themselves the sole answer to resolving IT service problems or quality of delivery. Firms must still resolve issues of alignment and strategy, define sound architectures, implement dynamic infrastructures BEFORE ITIL can have its ultimate impact on end to end process delivery.

Sustaining Transparency - Many IT organizations miss the mark when it comes to meeting and exceeding business expectations due to lack of transparency. The key components outlined above can contribute significantly to creating transparency with the business related to IT delivery of service on their behalf. It is critical that IT organizations institute a discipline of tooling, data capture and reporting procedures that consistently and accurately communicate to the business a complete transparent view of what, how, who related to the consumption of IT by the business and the delivery of service by IT.

We can’t emphasize how important this kind of playbook is instituted by the CIO’s office and executed by the leaders of the IT organization – if they want to enhance the collaboration with the business and become a more strategic and integral part of building the business.


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Better Management with IT Service

I realize exactly that running a garment business is not an easy jog. But that doesn’t mean we must give up just like that without giving our best shot to start and manage business. One main side that is always spin my head around is the Information Technology (IT) management. The fact is, none of my staff is a computer and network expert. While I want to introduce my products wider, thus it will lead to increase sale of my products through internet marketing.
After a couple of times talking to some friends, many of them suggested me that I had better uses the NY IT Consulting, an IT Outsourcing company.
The NY IT Consulting lies right in the city I live, Boston. NY IT Consulting has been helping me to manage my computer networks and provide services that I my self have thought possible. Later on I found out that NY IT Consulting has already had so many consumers to serve. Some among them are American Program Bureau, Abbot Capital - a private equity investment, Delphi construction, and many more.
Now after more than six months dealing with NY IT Consulting, I found out my business management has getting better, and the sale points ? hmmm….it’s promisingly increasing. Read More...

8 Ways to Boost Your IT Career in 2008

When you’re in sales, you’re always driven to think of ways on how you can get your products nearer your target market. When you have such an amazing product, the next step is to formulate an ingenious strategy by which you can best disseminate the info that you have the solution to your client’s problems.

One of the most wide-ranging and effective business strategies is to conduct a product launch. Introducing a product is costly, but if the product launch is done strategically, you’ll find that you can easily convert this expense into sales. Consider these tips on holding a product launch.

Study the selling points of your product. There’s no doubt that your product is amazing, but the challenge is how you can make the consumers think the same. Identify all the selling points of your product and rate them from strongest to weakest. Categorize the selling points according to the type of client. Where the product is food, for example, you should concentrate on presenting the product’s selling points on health benefits if your target market are the health buffs.

Have a message which you will convey clearly. All campaigns should be consistent with one clear message. In all your advertising materials — fliers, posters, TV ads, or radio plugs, make sure that your message is clear. The best way to achieve product recall is to have a product identity. Tell your customers exactly why they need your product.

Planning the launch. It’s a big event, so make sure everything is perfect - the venue, the attendees, the program, the food, etc. Write a list of people who should be there - VIPs, the press, some common people. Make a head count of these and consider a bit of spillover just in case some of your invitees would bring other with them. Based on this estimate secure a venue that would accommodate everyone. Make sure that the layout of the venue would allow for the smooth flow of foot traffic. Contact a caterer and plan for refreshments to cover all attendees.

Be prepared for questions. Don’t rush the launch because you will have to check about a lot of things before you can make the big announcement. When will your product be available? How much is the suggested retail price? Who are your designated outlets? These are only but a few questions which need answers before you broadcast. If your expertise does not include events organizing and management, it would be best to hire professionals.

Source : http://www.lifespy.com/

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