Published: August 2013
Page Count: 392
ISBN (Digital): 978-1-4533-5780-4

Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology

Version 2.0
By John Gallaugher

Included Supplements

Manual

Slides

Tests

Key Features

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Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Techonology, v. 2.0

John Gallaugher

WHAT'S NEW IN 2.0:

UPDATED, MORE RELEVANT CHAPTERS:

New chapter coverage including Amazon.com and Facebook, as well as updated information in the popular Zara and Netflix case studies, breathe fresh life into existing material.

NEW EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

Instagram, Tumblr, SnapChat, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora, GitHub, and StackOverflow all receive mention, ensuring relevancy and proper understanding of the current field.

For a comprehensive list of what's new in version 2.0, visit John’s blog.

John Gallaugher of Boston College was one of BusinessWeek’s “Professors of the Year.” His widely popular textbook offers a proven approach that has garnered student praise and increased information systems enrollment. There is no other Information Systems author today who keeps his text as "up-to-the-month" current.

For regular updates, follow Gallaugher’s blog, The Week in Geek, and connect with him on Twitter at @gallaugher.

This textbook is suitable for these courses: Undergraduate or graduate courses in Management Information Systems and Information Technology

This textbook is suitable for 2 and 4 year institutions.

PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES:

FOCUS ON STRATEGIC THINKING:

Rather than lead with technical topics, the book starts with strategic thinking, focusing on big-picture issues that have confounded experts but will engage students.

ENGAGING CASE STUDIES:

While chapters introduce concepts, cases on approachable, exciting firms across industries further challenge students to apply what they've learned.

1.1 Tech’s Tectonic Shift: Radically Changing Business Landscapes

1.2 It’s Your Revolution

1.3 Geek Up—Tech Is Everywhere and You’ll Need It to Thrive

1.4 The Pages Ahead

Chapter 2: Strategy and Technology: Concepts and Frameworks for Understanding What Separates Winners from Losers

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Powerful Resources

2.3 Barriers to Entry, Technology, and Timing

2.4 Key Framework: The Five Forces of Industry Competitive Advantage

Chapter 3: Zara: Fast Fashion from Savvy Systems

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Don’t Guess, Gather Data

3.3 Moving Forward

Chapter 4: Netflix in Two Acts: The Making of an E-Commerce Giant and the Uncertain Future of Atoms to Bits

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Act I: David Becomes Goliath: Crafting Killer Assets for DVD-by-Mail Dominance

4.3 Act II: Netflix and the Shift from Mailing Atoms to Streaming Bits

Chapter 5: Moore’s Law and More: Fast, Cheap Computing, Disruptive Innovation, and What This Means for the Manager

5.1 Introduction

5.2 The Death of Moore’s Law?

5.3 Bringing Brains Together: Supercomputing, Grids, Clusters, and Putting Smarts in the Cloud

5.4 Disruptive Innovations: Understanding the Giant Killers and Considerations for Avoiding Extinction

5.5 E-waste: The Dark Side of Moore’s Law

Chapter 6: Amazon.com: An Empire Stretching from Cardboard Box to Kindle to Cloud

6.1 Introduction

6.2 The Emperor of E-Commerce

6.3 Kindle and the Rise of Digital

6.4 Amazon and the Cloud: From Personal Storage to AWS

Chapter 7: Understanding Network Effects: Strategies for Competing in a Platform-Centric, Winner-Take-All World

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Where’s All That Value Come From?

7.3 One-Sided or Two-Sided Markets?

7.4 How Are These Markets Different?

7.5 Competing When Network Effects Matter

Chapter 8: Social Media, Peer Production, and Web 2.0

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Blogs

8.3 Wikis

8.4 Social Networks

8.5 Twitter and the Rise of Microblogging

8.6 Other Key Web 2.0 Terms and Concepts

8.7 Prediction Markets and the Wisdom of Crowds

8.8 Crowdsourcing

8.9 Get SMART: The Social Media Awareness and Response Team

Chapter 9: Facebook: Building a Business from the Social Graph

9.1 Introduction

9.2 The Facebook Platform: Disrupting Competition and Building Durable Competitive Advantage

9.3 Moving Fast and Breaking Things: What All Managers Can Learn from Facebook’s Mistakes

9.4 Advertising and Social Networks: A Work in Progress

9.5 Is Facebook Worth It?

Chapter 10: Understanding Software: A Primer for Managers

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Operating Systems

10.3 Application Software

10.4 Distributed Computing

10.5 Writing Software

10.6 Understanding Technology beyond the Price Tag: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and the Cost of Tech Failure

Chapter 11: Software in Flux: Partly Cloudy and Sometimes Free

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Open Source

11.3 Why Open Source?

11.4 Examples of Open Source Software

11.5 Why Give It Away? The Business of Open Source

11.6 Cloud Computing: Hype or Hope?

11.7 The Software Cloud: Why Buy When You Can Rent?

11.8 SaaS: Not without Risks

11.9 The Hardware Cloud: Utility Computing and Its Cousins

11.10 Clouds and Tech Industry Impact

11.11 Virtualization: Software That Makes One Computer Act Like Many

11.12 Make, Buy, or Rent

Chapter 12: The Data Asset: Databases, Business Intelligence, Big Data, and Competitive Advantage

12.1 Introduction

12.2 Data, Information, and Knowledge

12.3 Where Does Data Come From?

12.4 Data Rich, Information Poor

12.5 Data Warehouses, Data Marts, and Technology behind “Big Data”

12.6 The Business Intelligence Toolkit

12.7 Data Asset in Action: Technology and the Rise of Walmart

12.8 Data Asset in Action: Caesars’ Solid Gold CRM for the Service Sector

Chapter 13: A Manager’s Guide to the Internet and Telecommunications

13.1 Introduction

13.2 Internet 101: Understanding How the Internet Works

13.3 Getting Where You’re Going

13.4 Last Mile: Faster Speed, Broader Access

Chapter 14: Information Security: Barbarians at the Gateway (and Just About Everywhere Else)

14.1 Introduction

14.2 Why Is This Happening? Who Is Doing It? And What’s Their Motivation?

14.3 Where Are Vulnerabilities? Understanding the Weaknesses

14.4 Taking Action

Chapter 15: Google in Three Parts: Search, Online Advertising, and Beyond

15.1 Introduction

15.2 Understanding Search

15.3 Understanding the Increase in Online Ad Spending

15.4 Search Advertising

15.5 Ad Networks—Distribution beyond Search

15.6 More Ad Formats and Payment Schemes

15.7 Customer Profiling and Behavioral Targeting

15.8 Profiling and Privacy

15.9 Search Engines, Ad Networks, and Fraud

15.10 The Battle Unfolds

Instructor’s Manual

The Instructor’s Manual guides you through the main concepts of each chapter and important elements such as learning objectives, key terms, and key takeaways. Can include answers to chapter exercises, group activity suggestions, and discussion questions.

PowerPoint Lecture Notes

A PowerPoint presentation highlighting key learning objectives and the main concepts for each chapter are available for you to use in your classroom. You can either cut and paste sections or use the presentation as a whole.

Test Generator

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Test Bank Files for Import to Learning Management Systems

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Test Item File

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John Gallaugher

Boston College

John Gallaugher (PhD Syracuse University School of Management) is the founder of the Boston College TechTrek field study programs, and as an advisor to multiple successful student entrepreneurs, John has had unprecedented access to the world’s leading technology and tech investment firms. An award-winning educator and author, John has been named a "Distinguished Educator" by Apple Inc., a "Most Popular Professor" by Bloomberg Businessweek, and “Guru to Grads” by Entrepreneur Magazine. He has also received the Boston College Trzaska Faculty Leadership Award, the all-university Boston College Teaching Award, the Carroll School of Management Teaching Award, and the student newspaper’s Momentum Award for campus impact. His bestselling textbook Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology has been used at over 450 universities worldwide, and has twice won the Textbook and Academic Authors' Association "Texty" award for excellence. John has taught on five continents and has led field study experiences in Seattle, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Dublin, Ghana, and Sydney. John’s research has been published in leading journals including the MIS Quarterly and Harvard Business Review, and he has consulted for leading organizations including Apple Inc., Accenture, ING, Partners Healthcare, State Street, and the U.S. Information Agency, among others. John has worked extensively with student entrepreneurs and has seen several former students gain admittance to elite accelerators (Y-Combinator, TechStars, MassChallenge), raise capital, and build thriving businesses, with some garnering unicorn ($1 billion plus) valuations. His comments on Business and Technology have appeared in several media outlets, including The New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Associated Press, National Public Radio, and Wired. One of the rare academics who teaches managerial as well as software and hardware programming courses, you can find hundreds of "flipped learning" and project videos at: YouTube.com/profgallaugher. John holds both a BA in Computer Science and an MBA from Boston College, and a PhD in Information Systems from the Syracuse University School of Management. He occasionally publishes on Substack (http://profgallaugher.substack.com) and is also active on social media—having left X for Threads: @john.gallaugher.