micheal

I specialise in business information systems - I undertake research and provide consulting advice in the use and governance of business information systems.

Fun Times with IS Audit Exams

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When you do this job of mine, you have to amuse yourself where you can. Now that the deferred exam is over, I can share my creative masterpiece that is my IS audit question for Cool Cruzin’ Crazy Concerts:

(a) The principal of Cool Cruzin’ Crazy Concerts, Barry ‘Baz’ Tpzelzki, has the contract to sell all Australian tickets to Tina Guo’s worldwide Classical Crossover music tour, ‘Arthas to Zelda: Game On Gear Grinding’. The concerts are to be held in multiple venues throughout Australia, and every ticket sold is allocated a seat.

Tina Guo is an internationally renowned electric cellist known for her distinctive sound, videos that showcase her talent, and her classical takes on popular gaming music. Her shows have theatrical backdrops and elaborate costumes, and she has a mastery in a wide range of genres including major motion picture, television, and game scores.

Some concerts will be held in large concert halls in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. However, some concerts will be held in the more intimate venues such as the Hall of Arts in smaller regional towns such as Ballarat, Miles, Gundagai and Snowtown.

Barry wants to sell the tickets through his agents located in gaming stores, internet cafes, and backpacker hostels in regional Australia. Some of these agents have limited access to the Internet. Barry will also sell these tickets at the door of each venue on the day of the concert for walk-up patrons.

Describe the three ‘database distribution methods’ discussed in lectures that might apply here. Explain for Barry the advantages and disadvantages of each database method in relation to the sale of tickets to Tina Guo’s concerts.

Social networks and their importance in eCommerce gateways

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I’m a lecturer in information systems at the University of Queensland, and, quite frankly, avoiding the notion of social media is really hard these days.

I teach the IS for Management course to post-graduate students and the IT for Business Value courses for our MBA courses. Karthik Reddy at LearnMedia forwarded it to me. I’ve found a pretty good infographic on social networks and particularly how they relate to electronic commerce – it is done by the good folks at http://www.16best.net/. And indeed it’s a lot of work.

16Best’s brief seems to be all about internet marketing and becoming a ‘go-to source for reading buyer’s guides and product reviews’ (see here:  https://www.16best.net/about-us/).

Actually, I’ve described it as an infographic but it’s really one big infographic that is made up of a series of infographics – e.g. top e-retailers, social shoppers, percentage of social commerce revenue, history of social commerce. What I particularly like given my academic bent is that it lists all the sources that support the infographic at the end – not something that you get too often with an infographic. I immediately forwarded it to colleagues – and their feedback was quite positive.

So with all that said – here’s the link to the infographic https://www.16best.net/blog/social-networks-and-their-importance-in-ecommerce-gateways/ and below is the actual infographic (be warned:  it’s quite long!):

Cyber-Security for American Chamber of Commerce

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Today I was a member of a panel (with Scott Wilkie, Louis Abdilla and Lani Rafiti – and Kristen Devitt facilitating) at Stamford Plaza. We were all speaking to the topic of Cyber Security for American Chamber of Commerce. An interesting panel and a fun opportunity to speak to a captive audience (I’m sure they locked the doors).

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Annual Rostrum Convention Queensland

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Today is the Annual Rostrum Convention in Queensland.  I have arrived a bit late, so I am sitting outside in the coffee area blogging.  In my defence, I was up until midnight reviewing a student’s literature review submission for UQ prior to having to mark it.  

Rostrum is all about public speaking, so today’s discussions should be pretty good – given that I like that kind of thing.  Since I arrived late, I haven’t gone into the venue yet.  I am running a hypothetical later in the day – hmm, apparently for 45 minutes.  Given the last one went for two hours, I suppose this one will be a bit less taxing.  How does that sound?

All at the Brisbane International Hotel – at Windsor.  A cosy little venue.

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KPMG/UQBS CEO Dinner: Cyber Security and the CEO

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This is a presentation I gave for the UQ Business School (in conjunction with Stan Gallo of KPMG) at the Urbane Restaurant to a group of Queensland CEO/C-Suite people. These dinners are part of UQ’s engagement with the business community – a relationship we value. This engagement ensures we don’t get all locked up in our ivory tower.

This was a good night last night, I really enjoyed discussing cyber security/data governance issues with CEOs. This is going to be an increasingly important issue for Australian businesses – particularly as mandatory data breach notification takes hold.

The trend is certainly not toward ‘letting the data go wild’. It’s more a paddock-and-fences kind of situation.