In den heutigen Kursen werden den Studenten vorrangig die Fachinhalte erläutert. Excel stellt heute eines der wichtigsten Werkzeuge im Controlling, Rechnungswesen und Kostenrechnung dar. Leider wird die professionelle Umsetzung der Methoden und Theorien in Excel den Studenten in keinem Kurs näher gebracht. Auch die Praxis spiegelt dieses Bild wieder. So ist es keine Seltenheit, daß Controller die Pivot Funktion von Excel gar nicht kennen oder deren Einsatzmöglichkeiten unbekannt sind. Aber auch die effiziente Nutzung von Bereichsnamen und gut lesbare Wiedergabe von Berechnungformeln in Excel fehlt zum Teil auch in den IV Kursen.

In den IV Kursen werden zwar seinerseits diese Möglichkeiten näher gebracht, jedoch fehlt den Studenten meist das Wissen um den Konnex zwischen Werkzeug und Method so gut zu erkennen, daß eine professionelle Anwendung gelingt.
Auch der Kurs EDV gestütztes Controlling beschäftigt sich nicht mit dem Thema

Ziel ist es einen Kurs in Moodle aufzubauen, welcher den Kurs Kostenmanagement des Institutes "International Management Accounting" unterstützt und den Wissensbereich "Professioneller Einsatz von Excel im Kostenmanagement" schließt und den Studenten des Kostenmanagement Kurses dieses zusätzliche Lehrangebot (auch in künftigen Semestern) zur Verfügung gestellt wird.

Damit dieses Lehrangebot zum einen auf die Inhalte des Kurses Kostenmanagement abgestimmt sind und zum anderen auch bis zu den Studenten des Kurses gelangt bin ich mit dieser Projektidee bereits an den Insitutsvorstand des International Management Accounting Institutes heran getreten. Sobald ich eine entsprechende Antwort habe werde ich diese in meinem Blog anführen.

Das Projekt "Kulturwiki" beschäftigt sich mit dem Thema Motorradku(h)ltur. Der Begriff Ku(h)ltur ist absichtlich mit einem alternativen "h" geschrieben. Die rührt daher, daß besonders große und schwere BMW (Reise)Motorräder, im speziellen die Reiseenduros, von Ihren Besitzern gerne Q ("Kuh") genannt werden.

Es handelt sich hierbei um eine Gruppe von Menschen, die sehr gerne mit dem Motorrad über die ganze Welt verreisen und viel Ihrer Freizeit mit dem Motorrad, dem Fahren, Basteln, Warten, usw. verbringen. Diese haben inzwischen sehr viele interessante Informationen im Internet publiziert, jedoch fehlt ein Wiki das sich mit diesem Kulturthema beschäftigt.

Unter folgenden Link kann eine Einstiegspräsentation zu dem Projekt heruntergeladen werden: http://collabor.idv.edu/9520018/getfile?name=praesentation%20projekt%20kulturwiki

I have chosen two different products, first the Steganos Security Suite 2007 and second the Checkpoint VPN-1 Secure Client.

*** Stegnos Security Suite 2007 ***

This product offers a wide range of security functionalities. From encrypting files, Emails, Password, to Internet anonymising andcomplete destroyment of digital data. Here an description of the functionalities

Safe:
With this functionality an user can create a encrypted container which can be mounted as a drive. To open the drive you need to enter a secured key phrase which is used to en/decrypt the container.

Portable Safe:
Is simmilar to the Safe funtionality but enhanced by the option of being enable to open the container without having Steganos Security Safe installed on the target system.

Password Manager:
This is the tool I clear use most as it can be used for managing your password being used at different place. The main advantage is to unlock the password manager itself by it encryption key and than the system inserts the usernames and password automatically when you open one of the system of which you have stored the login information.

Email Encryption:
This feature can be used for classical email encryption supporting private/public key concepts. As the person you send the email to possibly does not have Steganos installed the system provides a file type which can be executed on the target system. Of course the receiver needs to have the private decoding key to open the email. When you receive an email which is encoded the system is able to automatically detect the key assigned to the receiver to open the encrypted message.

File Manager:
Can be used to en/decode single files on your computer.

AntiTheft:
A tool very useful for notebook users to protect a complete notebook again abuse. This tool ensures that a theft is not able to use the computer until he earses all data stored on the system. This finally does not protect your computer but for sure your data. This feature can be combined with the bitlocker drive encryption feature of Microsoft Windows Vista which finally protects the whole notebook again any intrustion.

Internet Trace Desctructur:
Is very useful if you do not want to provide tracking information while surfing in the internet as you automatically do when using any standard browser.


*** Checkpoint VPN-1 Secure Client ***
As I work for Europes leading water treatment company I am enabled to log into the companies internal network through a VPN secured internet connection.

The usage of this tool is quite simple. A private/public key system is used once for authentification (provided at installation time and frequently updated) and second for en/decrypting the traffic between my notebook and the firewall servers of my company.

All I need to access it my standard windows user account and pasword as the Checkpoint Software uses a Radius server for user authenfication. When logged in I get an IP address from inside the companies network and all my traffic (even my internet traffic) is passed through the VPN connection and secured through the companies firewall and virus protection.

http://www.steganos.com
http://www.checkpoint.com

Information technology bore a lot of useful communication system enabling users to transfer messages from any place to another in different kind of quality and using various media.

But just walk one step back and consider the basic question what communication, im meanings of communication science means. As this blog should use and refer to social software information provided in the internet we take a look on http://www.wikipedia.org for a proper definition what communication consits of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication

There we find three main dimensions of which communication is defined: Content, Form and Desination.

If we talk about social software we think about communication inside social system, which of course consit of human individuals. So communication in relation to social software still is communication between human begins. This kind of communication as most communication in general consits of much more than some roman alphabetic letters jogged into a computer system using an 102 letter keyboard.

So there is to some extent a clear lack in communication content using computer based systems. Of course the more intelligent ones may argue, that computer do not support text based messaging only and that there is the option of using very different media types like audio and video: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia

And if you use communication systems and social software for communication for information transfer between participants you will discover and interessting feeling of belonging to some elitist group of people. You are member of this community, you can participate and you will be heard. Your chance of "success" is not limited to your strings to empowered persones you have or do not have.

But we miss some very important aspect of communication. The surrounding in which you live in has an important influence on how you understand a message. Social Software and communication system are not able transfer this meta layer you relfect your messages with. Information throughout communication is always understood in relation to an actual context in/of your mind.

In face to face communication you have a lot of feedback given unconsciously to proof or check if you message was understood the same way you idented it to be understood. This feedfack options and possibilites given in a face to face meeting are always narrowed down to the capabilites of the communication technology you use.

So at this stage of understanding we have to admint that technology is cutting off some information part of the communication. But this should not draw a picture meaning that social software can not be useful, of course it is useful.

As always Microsoft is not first if understanding the power and possibilities they were cleary again second in enabling an user plattform and instant communication. But as Markting is a clear domain of the World´s second lagerst software company (IBM is still first) they set up an impressiv user communication space, called Windows Live, http://spaces.live.com/ and combined it with a powerful instant messaging tool - the Live Messanger. Of course, delivered automatically throughout every Windows installation.

Yes and they were intelligent enough to use their powerful pool of technology and set up this user communication plattform on the SharePoint Technology (http://www.microsoft.com/SharePoint), which is Microsofts Enterprise Portal and Content Management Software. Of course this software supports classic standards like RSS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS) enhanced by a new Workflow functionality beiing available with the release of Microsoft Windows Vista and available for all Windows XP and 2000 versions.

This technology is called .net Framework 3.0 and besides the workflow foundation it provides another, in relation to this topic very important issue, an communication foundation as well. As all modern products running on Windows systems are based on .net Framework (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663323.aspx) , the communication possibilites, which are enhanced by this Framework, are opened to all software applications running on the system at the same time: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663324.aspx

So in the mid of 90ties we faced the emporement of the internet and discovered a periode of "information at your fingertips" and clearling heading to the next dimension which could be described as the next stage of information speed, which is now "communication and your fingertips".

But as in the 90ties many persons argued that "information at your fingertips" was narrowed down to "animation at your fingertips" throughout providing colored, loud and multimedia animations on websites (http://www.balthaser.com) we have to consider if the same might happen to new communication possibilites in closed future?

So technology mainly puts a drive to social software based on its wonderful possibilites and yes there is a clear profit offered by systems like wikipedia, topic guided (discussion) forums and email lists. But is there really some offered by systems like youtoube, pandora or last.fm? Or are they just only a very well boxed systems for gathering market information?

Just think about gmail, the email plattform of google (http://mail.google.com). There it is necessary to get invited by someone else to be able to get an account. So google himself owns a link structure between all its members and than you use the same mail account for other systems. This usage may cause that your email address can be found again by the search engine of googel and this company owns (again) some more information about you, liked again to other information objects. Powerful concept and where is your advantage?

So just do not use these systems on because they look cool, sound great and are trend. Always use them consciously and think about the advantages really provided to you and at the same time the secrets you provide to them? And always believe there is not a thing like lunch for free in economics.

Quellen:
http://www.wikipedia.org
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication
http://spaces.live.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/SharePoint
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663323.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663324.aspx
http://www.balthaser.com
http://mail.google.com

Today information technology is the most important basis for daily communication and understood as standard. Somehow mankind discovered the conclusion that technolgy can or may save us.

From my point of view I unfortunally have to tell that it will not. Anyone of other position easy can tell that many problems have been solved throughout technology. Of course to some extent this is clearly true, but there is a clear need to take a look on the whole behavior.

First of all information technology firstly improves the speed of communication and likely used in modern business and education. But just think of a simple situation like it occurs very often. You use state-of-the-art communication systems, like discuss forms and plattforms but the persons who should read the information and respond to it just did not the find the time to participate or even worse do not care? A very good example are the (first steps) of austrian education institutes, they implement information and discussion portals but often the necessary organisation structures and processes are missing to make them really work.

Information starts to get dead locked and your are bounced back to use basic information ways like a phone or went to the place where this person resides to get the needed information. This is a perfect example that technology will save us if we have the fitting organisation and processes to this technology. But in the case like it often happens, where technology is just used to improve speed without implementing fast and well working processes, every one who is new to this hughe amount of possibilites will take the only impression that theses technologies do not work. Could this be the intention of the inventors and implementors?

As you see it is easy to picture out that information technologies are powerful, but will get an harmful damage to their images if not used by having implemented the correct processes and organisation.