The Countdown Has Begun...

To the wild end of the semester. Thankfully, Dr. Jih was extremely awesome in class today and will offer the option of completing a take home exam for Exam 3. This is crucial, seeing as how I will be out of town starting tomorrow (Tuesday) to see the family. I'm also 12 days away from taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and I'm getting a bit nervous about it. I'm going back to my roots, the University of Tennessee Knoxville, to take it, which I am excited about. I did my first two years of college at UTK and miss it sometimes. However, switching to MTSU was the right choice because I have loved every minute down here doing Criminal Justice Administration and Computer Information Systems.

When I come back from Thanksgiving, it will be time to buckle down and finish out the semester strongly.

Riders of The Storm

At 6:30 am Friday morning, the alarm clock went off signaling that it was time to go stand in line at Verizon, in hopes of securing the new Blackberry Storm. So, at 6:45am I arrived at the store, and was #9 in line to get the phone. The store opened at 8, however the manager came out at 7 and began issuing vouchers with the number position in line. I took this opportunity to go back and sit in the truck, grab a bite to eat and drink, and enjoy watching the snow flurries fall. 7:45, everyone reassembles back in line, and at 8 the doors open. I got my phone with no problem and had everything transferred over to the Storm from my BB Curve by 8:45 and out the door.

The Storm is a pretty solid phone in my opinion. It has a few operating system issues that have to be addressed (slow accelerometer, poor battery life, few other small things) but that is to be expected with the initial release of a smart phone. It is rumored that BB and Verizon rushed the released, and actually "downgraded" the operation system software, but that is yet (or may never) be confirmed. However, with almost three days of playing with the phone under by belt, I think it is a pretty solid performer. All the BB enthusiasts at CrackBerry have been helpful to one another in finding the pros and cons of this phone.

In other news, I'm looking forward to the Thanksgiving festivities. This is perhaps my favorite time of the year, marking the start of the holiday season. I think it is important that the observation of Thanksgiving is not overlooked. I have plenty to be thankful for in my life, and I know that regardless of what happens to me, I know that someone, somewhere, has it worse off than I do. I would also encourage everyone to go to www.letssaythanks.com and send a card, free of charge, to the men and women serving America. What an awesome way to show our appreciation for servicemen and servicewomen.

Class Notes 11/3/2008

"The Transformation of Business"

• Value is based on unique, personalized experiences of consumers
• N=1 (one consumer experience at a time)
• No firm is big enough in scope and size to satisfy the experiences of one consumer at a time
  
• R=G (resources from multiple vendors

• Model T
• Consumers were treated as an undifferentiated group
• All resources had to be within the firm to capture value

• TutorVista
• Student chooses the time when he wants to be tutored
• Lessons are personalized for that student
• Training for teachers, can take from 60 to 100 hours
• Initial results show that U.S. students participating in this sytem have dramatically improved their understanding of the subjects and their performance in them
• $99 per month
• TutorVista had access to 600 tutors
• Resources are accessed as needed from a global resource pool
• TutorVista currently has over 10,000 paying students, and it is expanding its tutor base of over 5,000 tutors to countries outside of India, including the United States
  
• The power of technology and analytics can be focused on the needs of single individuals through global rosources (N=1 and R=G)

• Truck tires
• Vendors sell their products competing largely on the basis of price, durability and brand awareness
• Contract with fleet owners to charge per mile of usage
• The reenue is based on the tire usage, not on a one-time tire sale
  
• The retial business shifts from a transaction base (selling a tire) to an ongoing relationship (continuous and ongoing measurements of usage and ability to provide feedback on better usage specific to a user) with the consumer
• Helps a specific drier improve their skills
• Installed sensors that measure tire performance in real time and relay the data to a central data center

• Goodyear vs Bridgestone
• Goodyear alreayd has a milage-based service for its fleet customers

• B2B and B2C
• The firm is moving from selling a product to selling as service
• The firm is moving from a transactional relationshp with a customer to a service relationship with a customer
• (B2B) organization, (B2C)

• Principle N=1
• One customer experience at a time
• Flexibility: if a company is focused on N=1 and that value is cocreated with the consumer then the firm has to be flexible
• Quality, Cost and Experience
• Collaborative Networks: no single firm can provide the ragne of skills to create N=1
• Complexity
• Customer Interfaces
• Scalability

• Principle R=G
• Access to Resources
• Speed
• Scalability
• Innovation Arbitrage
• The N=1 and R=G World
• N=1 and R=G: A Social Movement
  

Exam 2 was handed back today in class, I made a 95. I am content with this grade. We will have Chapter 2 of New Age of Innovation ready for presentation on Wednesday.

November is Here

Actually day 2 of November is here, and just about gone. I hate this end of Daylight Savings time. It seems as though it is dark at 5 o'clock now, and I don't care about the sun coming up earlier, it is always sunny out by the time I wake up.

I hope Dr. Jih will have the exams graded and ready to hand back tomorrow. I thought all of the questions on the exam were fair, especially since he told us to read more towards understanding the concepts versus reading to retain facts.

Once again, another weekend has come and just about gone. The Titans won today, improving their undefeated record to 8-0. Halfway through the season, I hope they can continue on with their perfect season. However, as they all say, it is hard to beat the same team twice.

I'm off here to hopefully start preparing for two exams and several papers I have due this week.

Game Time

Here we are just a few moments away from starting Exam 2. I feel I'm decently prepared to answer the questions. The kicker, however, is that I have a Web Development Exam immediately after this class. So as soon as I finish this Knowledge Management exam, I will begin reviewing the PowerPoints over web servers, images, cascading style sheets, images and meta tags (for search engine optimization).

Anyways, I'm ready for this day to be done. I will probably begin typing up my notes for a Criminal Law test which will be next Thursday. There is quite a bit of material that will be on this exam, so I need to start early to secure a good grade.

Exam 2 Review Monday Oct. 27th

So it is a bit hard to get back in the swing of things for school this week. This past weekend, I went to Atlanta to watch race 7 in the Chase for the Cup in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It had an incredible time, as this was this was the first time at a NASCAR race. I have been to several tracks in the past, but this was my first time being at the Atlanta track and seeing the race. We sat two rows off the track, and the seats were cheap - $19 with a student discount. The race was pretty clean, all but three cautions were for debris on the track. The only "real" wreck that occurred in front of us in between turns 3 and 4.

The night before, we went to Hooters in downtown Atlanta to watch the plethora of football games on TV. Of course I was interested in following the Vols, and once again, was disappointed in the outcome of the game. What can you expect, however, when your favorite team plays the #2 ranked team in the nation (Alabama).

Our presentation team has Ch. 2 in New Age of Innovation to present on Wednesday, Nov. 5th and Ch. 5 on Monday, Nov. 17th.

Test Review Topics:

• How Nucor steel strengthens and stimulates knowledge; their innovation; knowledge sharing and knowledge reapplication
  

• Expert System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_System) - problem solving system, using human knowledge from senior workers to increase and inhance less expereienced problem solver's knowledge; decision aid to those who contribute knowledge to the system; 80% of problems can be allocated to the expert system to solve the problem

• Characteristics of Web 2.0
• (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)
• (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html)
  
• (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_intelligence)
  

Knowledge Update

Today we learned that Exam 2 will be on Wednesday, October 29.

Topics to be covered:

1. The Nucor Steel article
2. Expert system - definition, system structure, applications, advantages, and limitations
3. "Connected consumers are collectively shaping your brand"
4. Naked Conversation: Chapters 1 - 8
5. The new age of innovation chapters 1 and 2

Additionally, Exam 3 will be on November 26.

http://kmfall2008.pbwiki.com/3500fall2008

Another Late One

Tomorrow at 2:40 I will take my midterm examination in Criminal Investigations. I'm not quite sure what I'm worried about, seeing as how the professor has given out a majority of the answers, I just don't want to get burned on the test. The midterm and final are the only two grades, besides required attendance, that we receive in the class.

I thought the presentation on Chapters 3 and 4 from the group today was pretty solid. I read those chapters several nights ago, however the information that was picked out and presented was also the information that stood out to me when I was reading the chapters. I read Chapters 7 and 8 last night, and will probably read another three or four chapters over the weekend and fall break. Speaking of which, this fall break could not come at a better time.

Settling in with Naked Conversations...

I am now up to Ch. 7 in Naked Conversations, and plan to read several chapters while laying in bed this evening.

In other news, how about the Presidential Debate? I thought some of the questions were very well thought out, and enjoyed hearing the two sides offer opposing views. It would have been awesome to be able to view the debate in person seeing how it was in Belmont, but being selected to get in (not even to ask questions) would be extremely difficult. I know who I want to be President, however I also know who I think realistically is going to become President. Oh well, I can only cast my vote and hope for the best.

As I normally do several times throughout the day, I checked crackberry.com before logging into Blogger here. I was extremely pleased to see that a plethora of information has been released about the new Blackberry Storm, the first touch screen Blackberry. Even better, it will exclusively be offered on the Verizon network. It seems as though all this information was set to drop at 12:01 am EST Wednesday, October 8. I know myself and other Blackberry enthusiasts have been waiting quite some time for more information, reviews and a drop date for the Storm. I just updated and extended my contract in June when the Curve 8330 came out, however I believe that I will be paying full retail price for the phone, if it lives up to the hype surrounding it.

That is all.

Just Another Monday

Today I will present information related to Chapter 2 of Naked Conversations, the yellow book about blogging. So far, I've read up to Chapter 7, and it has been fairly interesting. To be honest, when I first got the book, I thought it would be rather boring. However, the authors have illustrated how several companies, big and small, have achieved success by using blogging.

Wednesday I will present Chapter 8 out of the same book.

Tired? I don't think so....

So according to my computer clock, it is 2:23 am on Thursday morning. I just finished reviewing some case law for a Criminal Law test tomorrow at 9:40am. I plan on getting up at 7 and heading to the library at 7:30. I have been so busy this week, tonight is the only night I've had to prepare for this test. And for those of you who know Wild Bill Shulman, his tests can be rigorous.

Oh well. I missed Monday's meeting of Knowledge Management. I did receive my test back though today (well I guess it would be yesterday since it's now 2:25 Thursday morning). I made a 90 on it, which I suppose is alright with me.

The group discussion today was on Nucor steel. I have to be ready to present my already-read Chapter 2, and will also have to prepare a presentation on Chapter 8. The book really isn't that bad....that's right, go on and READ it.

I'm off to watch a movie and fall asleep. This has been the longest week ever with exams, papers, LSAT prep class and whatever else I've left out.

I'm ready for the WEEKEND.

Test Answers Reviewed in Class Today

Well I felt that a majority of the material Dr. Jih presented today for the answers on the test are similar to what I put for my essay answers. Hopefully I will get a good grade. I know my answer for number 2 deviated from what his answers were, but maybe partial credit will come my way.

Anyways, have another presentation assignment to do. We received the handout on Nucor steel, however I am responsible for presenting Chapter 2 out of the yellow book about business blogging.

Exam 1 Completed

I thought Exam 1 was pretty fair considering all of the topics we had covered. It seemed that Knowledge Management as Strategic Assets handout was questioned twice on the exam, and we never went over it in class. Other than that, thought the exam was pretty straight forward.

Sunday Night

Well here the weekend is, coming to a close. I saw Righteous Kill Friday, watched the Vols get stomped by Florida yesterday, and watched the USA play precision golf in the Ryder Cup singles matches today. I have also been studying for tomorrow's essay test.

Just Another Day In Paradise

Just found out that our first Knowledge Management Exam is going to be the following Monday (9/22/08). We are going to review Wednesday of this week.

Over the weekend, my presentation group was to analyze the article "Sharing Know-How at BP Amoco." I was responsible for the Visualization Technology section of the article, which invovled HIVE, which is short for Highly Immersive Visualization Technology. The technology behind HIVE is actually pretty cool, it is a25 foot wide curved screen expanding from floor to ceiling. It allows users of the system to experience a 3D approach to an environment, in this case, drilling on the ocean floor.

Another Presentation

After completing the "presentation" on collaborative advantage on Monday and more today, we are assigned another presentation that we will present this upcoming Monday. In order to become better organized and have a better flow for the presentation, we (the 4 of us in the group) have set up a "universal" GMail account and a wiki for group collaboration. Hopefully this will allow things to go smoother and make life easier for everyone seeing as how we are all on different schedules.

I'm sitting here waiting on INFS 2400 Web Development to start, yee-haw!

Sunday Afternoon....

So here it is Sunday afternoon @ 5:40 pm. I just finished writing a paper for my Private and Industrial Security class on why I think people who own firearms are more or less likely to become a victim of crime. Now I get to read the article assigned to us last Wednesday and prepare the presentation for tomorrow.

On an exciting note, how about the MT victory over Maryland last night? MT looked crisp and hopefully will do the same against Kentucky this upcoming weekend.

About Myself

For the first post, I will offer a bit of insight on myself. Part of this will be a repeat of the "About Me" section to the right, but I will expand a bit more in this post. This Fall 2008 semester marks my second year here at MTSU, however, my senior year overall for my college career. I spent two year at the University of Knoxville before making the move out here to "The Boro." Originally, I had planned to enter the medical field while at UTK, but soon realized that I had little or no desire to continue on that planned path. One of my life-long friends was hired on at the police department in my hometown, and after hanging out with him and riding with him on patrol, I soon realized what I wanted to do in life. I quickly got away from UTK and came to MTSU to major in Criminal Justice Administration, with a minor in Computer Information Systems. This semester I plan on taking the LSAT and applying to several law schools here in TN.

Besides my "obsession" with law enforcement and the criminal justice system, I share the same enthusiasm for geotechnical work. In summer 2007, winter break '07/'08 and summer 2008, I was employed with Rembco Geotechnical Contractors (http://www.rembco.com/) out of Knoxville, TN. We specialize in drilling foundation support systems for large buildings such as hospitals, parking garages and other large structures where massive amounts of weight must be supported. Additionally, we specialize in compaction grouting, chemical grouting, sinkhole remediation and soil nail/tieback walls.

In my spare time, I can usually be found laying around the apartment doing absolutely nothing. However, during the summer, I can be found on the lake wakeboarding in the evenings. One of my life long friends brother-in-law has a 2002 Tige V Drive that we ride behind. Liquid Force boards all the way! There is nothing I love much more than being out on the links during a hot summer day. I play with a Titleist 983E driver, Titleist 980F fairway wood, Titleist DCI Oversize irons, Titleist Vokey wedges and a Scotty Cameron TeI3 Newport 2 putter. These clubs are used to navigate a Titleist ProV1x around the course. I can be found some nights throwing chips around trying to win a Texas Hold'em game.