Social Media Project

Our group researched IBM's social media presence and practices. Our wiki is located at http://ism3004socialmedia.wikispaces.com/IBM. This was an interesting collaboration project. My second project at the University of Florida, but my first project that involved a wiki. On my previous project we just emailed Word documents to each other with tracked changes. I prefer to work with the wiki because you can see the project grow in front of your eyes in almost real time. Even with wiki collaboration it can still be difficult in getting everyone engaged in the project. To see how an almost perfect collaboration effort occurs see the Microsoft projects in history video at this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/office-documents-in-history/

I especially like the Declaration of Independence collaboration in word. Unfortunately, our project did not go as smoothly as that -not that any project in the real world could, but our team performed pretty good for our first stab at a wiki project.

Our team (team 5) began our exchanges on April 13th when I sent out an email as a “call to arms” and to select a company. At first we only had five team members, but then others joined in later. Our team consisted of me, Mathew, Elizabeth, Shelby, Kees, Jordan, and Karl. Mathew and Elizabeth were the first to respond. Mathew Archer was an excellent team member. He was always quick to respond and produce, and he was very helpful. I sent out a breakdown of assignments for our deliverables on the 17^th and the initial five members began contributing. Later in the week two more members logged in and helped out.

The wiki was coming along quite nicely, but we were missing some assignments (Wikipedia and Flickr). I did not realize until the due date that Kees did not have access to the wiki. We were able to get his information through the discussion board in order to submit his work to the wiki. All in all it was a good learning experience. I’m glad we got started on April 13^th (Friday the thirteenth) and didn’t wait any longer. Who knows what would have happened if we had. I have one suggestion though. This project may work better in the middle or beginning of the semester. Students may not put as much effort into the project later in the semester if they already have a good grade locked up through extra credit. This may be a disadvantage to the other students who are not in that position.

From this experience I want to learn more about creating and maintaining wikis. I’m going to create one at work so that our technicians can use it as a repository of system knowledge. They’ll be able to update and correct information as needed. Overall this was my favorite project of the semester.

Database Project

On this project I learned the fundamentals of Access 2010. In a previous college course we studied Access database functions briefly, but not to the level that Mr. Olson presented the material. The material was a little daunting because unlike Excel, I have never used Access in real life applications before. The lectures were concise and easy to follow. Mr. Olson did not present any distracting material that could later become confusing for a learner like me. I was able to refer to the lectures many times when I ran into problems with the project. Unlike my previous course, I can now see a direct correlation from the raw data, to tables, to queries and reports. I also learned to import data from Excel and CSV files, which I can use at work now with lots of raw data that I have and see what kind databases I can generate. Our technicians do monthly PMs on telecommunications equipment and keep an inventory of spare parts. We have been using Excel spreadsheets to document these events. With this knowledge in hand I’m now considering using an Access data base form and tables to archive this data. Once I got into the project I really enjoyed it. The course gave me the fundamentals to get started and hopefully become more proficient in this powerful application. It’s important that I use these newly learned skills at work immediately so that they do not fall by the wayside.

The main frustration for me with Access is the formatting. I wish that Microsoft would develop a more user friendly interface when dealing with formatting the reports and forms. It can become tedious working back and forth between design view and form or report view and trying to get everything to look presentable. A dual pane would be useful.

One possible career path I’ve been considering is data mining. They offer graduate studies in this field at the University of Central Florida. This project has given me a glimpse into some of the workings of relational databases. If anyone is interested in finding out what a data scientist does here are a few links.

 http://www.datascientists.net/

http://www.thedatascientist.com/ 

Excel Project

Of the assignments we’ve had so far, this Excel project was the most engaging. I’ve been learning about Excel off and on now since 1997. The problem for me is that if I don’t use it every day, I forget how to use certain features, but that’s what makes Google so awesome as well. If it’s been done before in Excel someone has posted it on the internet. A cool podcast to listen to if you’re a real numbers freak is:

http://www.mrexcel.com/podcast/learnexcelpodcast.html

“Mr. Excel” knows everything about the spreadsheet application. Just make sure that when you hear about a function that interests you, that you go ahead and try to implement it in your current work. Otherwise, you will not remember how to use it.

I have worked with formulas before, so this assignment wasn’t too tough. This was my first time delving into Pivot Tables. I’ve got to find a way to start using them at work. They’re a great tool to have. They make it so much easier to present and manipulate data, like this pivot table I did for Average of Percent Increase:

I’m not a data freak, but I enjoy using Excel spreadsheets at work occasionally. For the past three weeks we've been using a 70 tabbed spreadsheet at work  to calculate pricing for a very important project. Sometimes these spreadsheets can get unwieldy, but this one was invaluable when it came to “scrubbing the numbers.” That’s one of the great things about Excel is that it allows you to tweak certain variables (costs) and then you can watch the effects propagate through the rest of the data. Excel is great for stress test analysis. Having doubts about certain costs or revenues. Just change them and watch and look at the result. Sometime the have very little effect. At other times they are large.

Excel is an invaluable tool for business persons, scientists, and engineers. A business person in today’s world must be proficient at Excel spreadsheets in order manage their business. For the business person, not being able to use Excel is like a carpenter not being able to use a hammer