I should start off by mentioning that I’m an accountant. However, information systems is becoming more and more important in accounting. In fact as I earned my Masters in Accountancy class I took three systems classes; lest you think that isn’t very many, that is the same amount of financial accounting classes that I took.
This information systems guide (ISYS Guide) will cover a wide variety of topics. At times it may not seem like the topics are very related, but unfortunately that is the nature of information management. One day you’ll be talking about a certain piece of technology that works for a certain field, the next you’ll be talking about a risk management process in a completely different field. Information systems creeps its way into all of our lives because we all require information to make better decisions.
Dispelling a Common Myth About the Need for Information
Some misguided people believe that they don’t need information to make decisions. They rely on hunches, gut feelings, and luck to guide their lives, businesses, or families. These people justify their lack of information seeking by pointing to successful people who said something along the lines of “I just had a hunch.” What these successful people often fail to mention to their followers is that before they made the decision they gathered information for days, weeks, months, and even years. It is common knowledge within the information management field that no one or thing can process all the available information. However, successful people gather as much information as possible (within a deadline) and then after carefully considering all that information, rely on their hunches, intuition, or whatever you want to call it.
The truth is it does take some luck to make good decisions, but you’ll have a lot higher likelihood of being lucky if you gather information first.
The Topics that Will Be Covered on this Website
Our approach to this website will be a bit unconventional. Normally when teaching systems course, teachers start out by explaining basic decision making models and then they build from there. As a business-minded person I believe it is best to give people what they are looking for (thanks to the marketing professors I’ve had). The closest data I have to know what people are looking to understand is found by how many searches are performed with certain words in the technology and information industry. Basically I used a tool to find words related to information systems and then entered the words into Google’s search engine. I made a note of areas that looked under-covered. I will cover those areas on this site.
Category 1: Business Intelligence
There are some good resources out there about this type of intelligence, but it’s a pretty exciting field so I figured we would have to cover it. Some of the main subcategories within this field include data mining and analytical processing. Basically you are looking through a huge set of data trying to find useful information to help make good decisions. Life is all about making good decisions.
Category 2: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Yes I realize that most people don’t think of CRM as an information systems category. The truth is if you are going to be personable with your customers and impress them, then you’ll need to have information about them. If you can’t remember that John prefers blue widgets over black widgets and you don’t have a system to keep track of all of this information then you are going to have a tough time making a sale to John.
We’ll cover topics like CRM consulting, best practices, processes, providers, and reviews. When we’re done with this section, you’ll have a complete resource for everything you need to have successful customer relations.
Category 3: Data, Data, Data
What would a systems website be about if we didn’t talk about data. Data processing, data protection, and data recovery. This category might be merged with category one in the future as they are closely related. For all you database lovers out there, we’ll cover some information on that as well. Yes we realize this site is going to take a while to become the complete guide we hope it to be, but with a little patience and persistence, we’ll have a great resource on our hands.
Category 4: Information Technology
I don’t claim to be the most tech savvy person in the world, but I know an invaluable tool when I see one. We will have some discussion about the best information management tools and software. There will probably be a section here on VOIP and other phone systems (this is becoming very important for businesses)
Category 5: Miscellaneous Information and Knowledge
This will be the category with subjects that are related to information systems, but don’t merit their own category.
I reserve the right to not hold exactly to these categories and I will adjust the site and make it as user friendly for readers as possible. Also for any of you avid ISYS people out there, you can expect 3-4 posts a week.
Sincerely,
The Isys Man