MIS good

Essay Topics

1. How technology helps a) fulfill needs (in a new way) and b) how technology create new needs.

· What are we doing today that we weren’t able to do 10 years ago (examples)?

· What are might we be doing 10 years into the future (examples)?

· How has technology changed the way we go about our daily activities (examples)?

· Give three examples of transforming technologies. In what way are they/will they be transformative?

· Give examples of products and/or services that has become obsolete because of new technology? What replaced them

2. Swimlane modeling

· What is a business process? Give an example of a typical business process.

· What is the purpose of swimlane modeling?

· What is swimlane modeling? Describe its main elements

· What are some of the business reasons why a company would engage in swimlane modeling?

· Develop a small swimlane based on a given process scenario

3. Porter’s 3 generic strategies

· Explain Porter’s 3 generic strategy framework. Be sure to explain the two dimensions in the framework.

· With respect to the 3 generic strategies, what is Porter’s recommendation?

· What does it mean to be “stuck in the middle”?

· Choose one industry. Give one example of each of the three strategies by giving naming a company which has adopted that particular strategy. Justify your answer.

· Within the same industry, mention a company who is “stuck in the middle.

4. Technology and e-commerce

·  What are some of the benefit of online shopping?

·  What are some of the drawbacks or barriers to online shopping?

·  What has for example Amazon.com done to address many of the drawbacks and barriers to online shopping?

·  Why is it difficult for Walmart or Best Buy to compete with online retailers like Amazon?

5. Efficiency and effectiveness in business process

·  What strategy has Amazon.com chosen?

·  Describe some typical activities in Amazon’s value chain.

·  What is the difference of having an efficient business process and an effective business process? Give examples.

·  Looking at Amazon’s website and operations, give examples that attest to Amazon’s efficiency

·  Looking at Amazon’s website and operations, give examples that attest to Amazon’s effectiveness

·  Compare Amazon.com with Walmart.com (not the brick-and-mortar store). What differences do you observe?

5. Hardware

·  List five main internal components of a personal computer (excluding input/output devices like keyboard, monitor, mouse, DVD drive, speakers, etc.) and explain their function.

·  Define/describe the following terms:

· Digital signal

· Bit

· Byte

· RGB

· Encoding/decoding

· ASCII

·  How does Moore’s Law relate to microprocessors?

·  Why are hardware specification often listed in terms of the numbers 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc.?

·  Give there examples of how to physically represent or transmit “0”s and “1”s.(2008)