Friday, February 24, 2006

CTE Blog

LCCC's Center for Teaching Excellence has a new blog. Stop in and say hi!

Corporate Blogging in Cleveland

In a post titled, I Know Cleveland Rocks, But Why Doesn’t It Blog? on the Cleveland Blog, Brewed Fresh Daily, Jim Kukral muses about the lack of Cleveland Big Business Blogs.

from the article:
I’ve lived here my whole life, and from experience, I notice we are perpetually years behind the rest of the world on all big trends, good or bad. For example, blogging. We have some very smart and creative bloggers in town, yes, but maybe I’m not seeing it, where are all the big business blogs?


Jim is the Director of KB! Blog Services, an organization that helps organizations use blogging strategically.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Crain's Cleveland Report: Shortage of IT Talent in NE Ohio

A recent article (by subscription) in Crain's Cleveland, quotes several local executives as saying that there is a shortage of trained IT talent in the NE Ohio area - with JAVA and .Net technologies being the skills with the biggest shortage. Part of the issue was identified as universities not having updated their curriculum. Another reason cited was that some students are avoiding IT programs due to the perception of many that there are few IT jobs in the United States because of the DotCom bust of 2000-2001 and fears of outsourcing. This article and the previous post indicates that such fears are exaggerated, as there seems to be a solid and improving job market for IT.

LCCC has for several years included .Net and Java in the Software Develpment and Web Development curriculums.

Thanks to Cindy for bringing this article to my attention.

Tech Hiring Growing...

A CNN report describes that hiring in IT is increasing in the U.S. and is outpacing the loss of jobs due to offshoring.

from the article:
The Association for Computing Machinery, a professional development organization that includes academic, government and industry officials from the information technology field, released a study Thursday that said that shifting IT jobs to countries like India or China is not nearly the threat to workers here that is commonly believed.

The study cites estimates that between two to three percent of IT jobs will be lost annually to lower-wage developing countries through the process known as offshoring. But it said the U.S. IT sector's overall growth should outpace that loss of jobs, expanding opportunities for those trained in fields such as software architecture, product design, project management and IT consulting.


Again, more confirmation that while the phenomenom of outsourcing is real, it does not mean the death of IT as a career in the U.S. and while there has been a lot of press coverage and hype concerning offshoring, we must be equally committed to balance that part of the story with stories about the growing IT job market here in the U.S.

Thanks to Paul for bringing this to my attention.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Target sued for inaccessible site...

Blind patrons sue Target for site inaccessibility

From the article:
The suit, filed in Northern California's Alameda County Superior Court by Sexton and the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind (NFB), claims that Target.com, "contains thousands of access barriers that make it difficult, if not impossible, for blind customers to use."

For example, the suit charges that visual information is missing "alt-text," or invisible code that allows screen readers to detect and vocalize a description of an image. In addition, the site lacks accessible image maps, an impediment to jumping to different site destinations, the suit says. As a result, Sexton, who attends the University of California, Berkeley, says that while he can search the site for specific products, he's unable to associate prices with those goods.


More from the article:
This is just the latest in a series of lawsuits filed related to Web accessibility for the blind. Goldstein represented the NFB in a case against America Online that ended in a 2000 settlement that led to better Web service for the blind, he said. And in August 2004, Priceline.com and Ramada.com agreed to make their Web pages easier to navigate for the blind and visually impaired as part of a settlement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

But soon after, a federal appeals court ruled that Web publishers are not required to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act in a case filed by an advocacy group for the blind asking Southwest Airlines to redesign its Web site.


I think the issue of Web Accessibility has particular relevance and importance to us with regards to distance learning.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Another view of Globalization

Barry Lynn's compelling book, The End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation, discusses how our economy has moved into a global, interdependent economy, and how this has resulted in the erosion of our economic security. He argues that a number of forces, including an unbridled faith in free market forces by the government, and the view that corporations only have responsibility to their shareholders, have created a system that leaves us vulnerable.

From the publisher's site:
In September 1999, an earthquake devastated much of Taiwan, toppling buildings, knocking out electricity, and killing 2,500 people. Within days, factories as far away as California and Texas began to close. Cut off from their supplies of semiconductor chips, companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard began to shutter assembly lines and send workers home. A disaster that only a decade earlier would have been mainly local in nature almost cascaded into a grave global crisis. The quake, in an instant, illustrated just how closely connected the world had become and just how radically different are the risks we all now face.

End of the Line is the first real anatomy of globalization. It is the story of how American corporations created a global production system by exploding the traditional factory and casting the pieces to dozens of points around the world. It is the story of how free trade has made American citizens come to depend on the good will of people in very different nations, in very different regions of the world. It is a story of how executives and entrepreneurs at such companies as General Electric, Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, and Flextronics adapted their companies to a world in which America’s international policies were driven ever more by ideology rather than a focus on the long-term security and well-being of society.

Politicians have long claimed that free trade creates wealth and fosters global stability. Yet Lynn argues that the exact opposite may increasingly be true, as the resulting global system becomes ever more vulnerable to terrorism, war, and the vagaries of nature. From a lucid explanation of outsourcing’s true impact on American workers to an eye-opening analysis of the ideologies that shape free-market competition, Lynn charts a path between the extremes of left and right. He shows that globalization can be a great force for spreading prosperity and promoting peace—but only if we master its complexities and approach it in a way that protects and advances our national interest.


From a review by the Washingon Examiner:
Lynn's text is a revealing look at the gritty realities of the globalized economy. Forget outsourcing, China, exploitation, living standards and all the rest - according to Lynn, the real danger of globalization is its ruthless perfection.

In a scramble to outsource labor and reduce supply lines, American multinationals have all but completely abandoned traditional manufacturing, Lynn maintains. Firms like Dell and Cisco have erected global production networks devoid of excess and controlled with pinpoint efficiency.

In globalized America, the assembly line has been replaced with the outsourced production contract. The future, Lynn argues, has been traded for the bottom line. Driven by the insatiable expectations of shareholders, American corporations have abandoned research and development and all but ignored questions of security and risk.


I encourage anyone who read Friedman's book to read this one as well. Lynn's book is not anti-globalization, as much as it is a wake-up call to governments to address critical security risks which he alleges are currently being ignored by corporations and governments - that an unqualified faith in free market forces has the potential for large scale collapses, given the complex interdependence of the world economy and the ever present risk of disasters, which could easily upset the fragile balance.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

The Importance of Supply Chain Management in the Global Economy

Supply Chain Digest has a 2-part article (Part 1 - Part 2) about how modern global businesses use supply chain efficiencies to gain "competitive advantages".

Part 1 is an overview on the importance of supply-chain management in the global economy. From the article:
Achieving market leadership in today’s global economy requires a global supply chain - suppliers, carriers, agents, customs and government agencies, and distribution networks – that can react quickly to changes in the global environment and adapt to longer unforeseen developments. To be a world class participant in the global economy requires supply networks that are efficient, streamlined and are able to move quickly to balance the three variables; price, quality and service, to meet consumer driven demand. Depending on the organization the exact configuration of the global supply network will be a shifting blend of domestic and global manufacturing and sourcing.

Part 2 focuses on the role of Information Technology in supply chain management. From the article:
To be lean requires knowledgeable people and strong business processes. However, without the proper integrated information technology environment to support the vast amount of data that flows from a simple sourcing transaction most if not all the benefits of going global will be lost. Achieving an agile and adaptable organization is a function of having the right information at the right time for the right people to make important short term tactical and long term strategic decisions as relates to global commerce initiatives.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Silicon Valley and "The World is Flat"

An article on Mercury News discusses the popularity of Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat
From the Article:
How obsessed has Silicon Valley become with "The World Is Flat," the bestselling book about globalization?

Ash Lilani, head of Silicon Valley Bank Global, not only read it, he bought 50 copies of the book by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as gifts for employees and colleagues.

More from the Article:

Peter Schwartz, a Friedman friend and chairman of the Global Business Network, a futurist think tank in Emeryville, said the author has taken something very complex that many in the valley have been struggling to explain and put it in a language easily understood.
"It's not radically new," Schwartz said. "But he articulates it in such a way that it speaks to everyone."


As one might imagine, there are those that disagree with the book:
Of course, Friedman has his detractors. Kevin Danaher, co-founder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco organization fighting growing corporate power, said Friedman fails to acknowledge the dark side of globalization, such as the increasing environmental problems.

"He doesn't really see the dirty underbelly," Danaher said. "The people we work with are pretty critical of Thomas Friedman. They see him as the mouthpiece of the empire."


According to the article, "A 'Flat 2.0' is due out this spring -- with another 100 pages."

Mike Zellers will be leading a roundtable discussion of the book this semester. Contact him for more details.

Read the complete article.

Cross Posted to LCCC's CTE Blog

Monday, February 06, 2006

A New Internet Boom?

Wired magazine reports on a new Internet Boom.

The article claims that a primary cause for the Dot Com Bust of the late 90's was that the infrastructure, and the world, wasn't quite ready for it. That all has changed.

From the article:
Today, broadband is mainstream, online shopping is commonplace, everyone has a wireless device or two, and Apple's latest music player was - for the fifth season in a row - the must-have holiday gift. The Internet and digital media are clearly not fads. Over the past decade, we've started to live a life only imagined in mid-'90s business plans. As a result, some silly bubble-era ideas are starting to actually make sense - perhaps a lot of sense.


Read the entire article.

High Demand Careers

A CNN Money article describes .Net developer as one of the most in demand job positions. LCCC teaches .Net technologies in CISS135, CISS136 and CISS243.

Read about the rest of the in demand jobs at CNN Money