Online Companion to Electronic Commerce text
Most Recent Class Notes
Feb 23rd: Thank you all for your participation this term. I hope you have enjoyed/learned from the class. Do note that for purposes of propriety and confidentiality, I do not email final course grades. You should contact your Program Advisor and follow her directions to obtain your mark, or see me in person in my office, if you do not wish to wait for the Registrar's official report. All the best.
Previous Class Notes
Feb 16th: This morning I received a telephone call from a wheelchair-bound older woman who needs help learning to use a computer. If you are interested in helping, and patient & knowledgeable enough to help someone in the community learn the basics, and want to, as she put it--"earn a little change"--contact me by email and I will give you her name and telephone number.
Feb 15th: I here post the Final Exam Study Guide for your review. Hardcopies will also be made available during tonight's f2f meeting. If not tonight, then I will see you next Thursday, Feb 22nd. The exam begins at 6:00pm sharp, and ends no later than 10:30pm.
Feb 12th: This Thursday evening, Feb 15th, I will be available in James 218 (the ISM computer lab) from 6:00-7:00pm to provide a f2f review session for anyone who is interested. This is not a mandatory f2f meeting. But you are welcome to come to discuss the material we have studied this term if you wish. To help you prepare for the final exam, which will be held in the same room on Thursday, Feb 22nd, beginning at 6:00pm sharp, I will be posting a Study Guide on my web site for you to read/print no later than Friday morning, Feb 16th. Look for it in this "class notes" section.
Jan 30th: Advance announcement of a Webcast, sponsored by the Harvard Business School. On Friday, Feb 9, through Sunday, Feb 11, symposium speakers on Business and the Internet will be transmitted via the web. The kick-off address is Friday evening at 5:30pm (Eastern time) with Tim Koogle, Chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Other speakers will be shown beginning Sat morning starting at 9:00am (Eastern time) and Sun morning starting at 11:00am (Eastern time). The presentations likely will be stored for later access (as they have done for others); but no future access date is given. This announcement suggests that only synchronous broadcast will be available during the conference proceedings. You can get to the webcast site for all the speakers at http://www.cyberposium.com/cyberposium2001/webcast/webcast.asp
Jan 25th: Correction of typo in the syllabus. Note that the reading for Feb 15th comprises chapters 11 & 12, not 5 & 6 as noted both in the original hard and web copies. The web copy has been corrected. Please adjust your hard copies accordingly to avoid confusion. Apologies for not catching the error sooner.
Jan 23rd: Just a gentle reminder: 15% of your grade turns on your level of participation, either here in the forum or via other evidence of internalizing course material as outlined in the first class lecture. While a couple of you started strong, I have been a tad disappointed in the paucity of substantive exchanges to date. As we are now roughly half-way through the course, I would urge you all to take seriously this assessment item.
Jan. 14th : Remember to "publish" your Yahoo! site before sending your url to me via email. If you do not publish it, I won't be able to view it.
Jan. 12th : Because of the state's announcement of possible rolling blackouts, the CBU server was powered down last night (Thursday, Jan 11th), ~5:15pm and did not come back online until ~8am today. (Welcome to the fragile world of the public Net. Consider what this means for our study of ecommerce.) This also means that any homework assignments sent later than that time reached me first thing this morning rather than last night. I will not, of course, be applying late penalties in those cases. (As a point of information, when a receiving server is down, your mail is typically held in reserve until it comes up again; it rarely is lost.) So I will be marking this weekend. If you do not receive a grade from me for this first assignment by Monday afternoon, get in touch by phone or email to determine whether I did in fact receive your work.
Jan. 5th : Quick point of clarification about extra credit: only first submission of an original, usable link will count towards your extra credit tally; duplication of links already coming to my attention and accepted for my metasite--whether found by me or others--will not count. First come; first credit.
Dec. 20th: Attendance at the first class meeting on Thursday, 4 January 2001, in James 218 is critical. Be sure to attend or have someone come in your place to receive copies of the syllabus and handouts, and to take notes of how the course will proceed online. We will not meet again face-to-face as a class until the Final Exam on 22 February.
Final Exam. Follow this link to the Final Exam questions. Follow this link to the Motorola case background story. You may find it beneficial to print out a copy of the questions for reference while you read the story. I look forward to reading your responses.
Presentations - We aim to start promptly at 6:00pm. Remember that presentations should last ~20 minutes, leaving time for questions (~10 minutes), for 30 minutes total. This total time limit will be strictly enforced.Order of Presentations for Monday, Dec 18th:
- Group 11 - Intel
- Group 5 - Merck & Co.
- Group 8 - Agrico, Inc.
- Group 1 - China
- Group 10 - CBS
- Group 6 - Johnson Controls
We won't have time to linger over issues of choosing between our various ethical theories. Click here for a Slide Show on How to Choose? that will help you consider key issues involved.
For results of the case study ballots, and and explanation of what is required for written outlines and presentations of the cases, click here.
An item of interest: Does prosperity make you happy? provides cross-cultural comparisons on wealth accumulation and self-reports of happiness. The LA Times piece on the language of luxury mentioned in class can likewise be found here.
N.B. Our MidTerm exam is scheduled for Monday, October 16th. There will be an optional review session on Friday, October 13th, beginning at our usual class time. There will be no formal class meetings on Wednesday and Friday, October 18th and 20th. All the best on your other midterm exams!
For an interesting set of interviews on The Changing Face of Business: A Look at Work, click through to the NPR Talk of the Nation website. Includes interviews with executives from Hallmark and Sprint. Requires Real Audio player.
Click to review brief case descriptions for the first case study. Assignments will be made on Friday, Sep 22nd.
Click for a brief essay, Marx in the Mirror of Globalization, that should be read along with the excerpt of Marx from our text, due to be discussed on Monday, Sep 18th.
NYT: Shattering HP's Glass Ceiling |
WSJ: Keystroke Cops |
Fast Company: The Will to Lead? |
WSJ: Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard |
WSJ: IT & Women in India |
WSJ: CIA on the Web |
InfoWeek: A Question of Ethics |