Introduction
"Digital culture" is a new field of research and application, which refers to the digital version of cultural heritage: from the visual arts (painting, sculpture), the performing arts (music, theater, dance) and the media communication (television, cinema), even artificial environments (architecture) and natural environments (in the form of cultural landscapes).
Digital culture, in turn, includes the new media that were born in the digital sphere, such as virtual reality reconstructions, Internet art and new interactive narratives. Also, the digital versions, content and functions of heritage institutions (libraries, museums and archives). Like museums and heritage institutions, digital culture takes on the challenge of collecting, contextualizing, preserving and transmitting.
The objective is to promote the development of ICT and its applications for the construction of the so-called knowledge society, offering all citizens the possibility of making the most of the resources offered by technologies. More specifically, the objective is to propose a thematic map of research in digital culture. We consider an exploration of the effects and implications of digital media with respect to culture, the analysis of how knowledge, critical thinking and teaching are affected in the field of ICT. In the emerging society, based on digital knowledge, one of our essential tasks is to meditate on the effect of innovative use of ICT, especially with the evolution of the Internet, which is leading to new forms of access, of learning,of work and creativity. We start from the hypothesis that the digital age represents a new stage in the construction of human knowledge, not without warning that this stage drinks its sources in humanistic and technological concerns that have manifested themselves over the centuries and that now reach a new stadium. (Colorado Castellary, 2010)
But when we talk about "digital culture" we are highlighting "content" at the same level as "media", however novel they may be. The "new technologies", which are no longer "new" despite the accelerated development of new programs and supports, occupy a parallel place against the need for content in the hypermedia industry. In fact, it is the medium itself, with its specific language of integration and interactivity, that encourages the creation of new content in accordance with that language.
In turn, digital culture must not only bet on the impact of the introduction of technologies in teaching and in the transmission of culture, in many cases marked by a certain technological determinism, but in-depth study of the development of new content, in an adequate quality linked to new media and its design. From this perspective, it can be said that the digital gap denounced by UNESCO will not be solved simply with a technological deployment, since cognitive fracture will prevail if a parallel effort is not developed in content adapted to the digital medium (BINDE, 2005).
In the emerging knowledge-based society through digital, one of the essential tasks is to analyze the innovative effect of ICT, especially with the evolution of the Internet, which is leading to new forms of access, inquiry, learning and of creativity.
Basic concepts
Cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the reflection of human activity that documents us on the material, historical and artistic culture of different times, and that, due to its exemplary and representative condition of the development of culture, it is necessary to preserve. (UNAM, 2008)
The different genres that make it up:
- Real estate, easel painting, graphic work, sculpture, murals, books, numismatics, machinery and instruments, popular art, archaeological pieces, palaeontological pieces.
Knowledge society
In a 'knowledge society', the structures and processes of the material and symbolic reproduction of society are so impregnated with knowledge operations that information processing, symbolic analysis and expert systems take precedence over other reproduction factors such as capital. and work. The 'knowledge societies' are not simply societies with more experts, more infrastructures and technological information structures, but the validity of the concept depends on the verification that the production, distribution and reproduction of knowledge has acquired a dominant importance over the other factors of social reproduction.
One of the characteristics of the 'knowledge society' is the radical transformation of the economic structure of the 'industrial society', from a production system based on material factors to an economic system in which symbolic and knowledge-based factors are dominant. Cognitive factors, creativity, knowledge and information increasingly contribute to the wealth of companies.
Another characteristic is the scientification of essential areas of society: (STEHR, 2000)
- Substitution of other forms of knowledge by science; Trends towards the constitution of science as a direct productive force; Constitution of a specific political sector (education and science policy) Constitution of a new productive sector (production of knowledge) Transformation of structures power (technocracy debate) Transformation of the legitimizing base of power towards special knowledge (expert power) Tendency towards knowledge becoming a basic factor of social inequality and social solidarity. Transformation of the dominant sources of social conflicts.
The 'knowledge society' is not only characterized by the expansion of verified knowledge but also by the growing knowledge of non-knowledge and the uncertainties and insecurities produced by it. Knowledge in general and more specifically the knowledge of experts are subjected to a process of continuous reflection and review, and in this way the rules and assumptions of society are increasingly questioned. The 'knowledge societies' are distinguished by making more and more new options for action available to more and more actors, and at the same time by the increasing questioning of generalized and homogenized action structures.
In a 'knowledge society' regulatory structures are eroded faster and this type of society is characterized by the development of new rules. Therefore, 'knowledge societies' gain in stability, but also in insecurity and fragility. In the 'knowledge societies', homogeneous social and intellectual units are not necessarily constituted, but they are characterized by the parallel or joint existence of different forms of organization and social thought.
A 'knowledge society' is not necessarily more egalitarian than the 'industrial society'. Bearing in mind that, according to various analysts, the 'knowledge society' continues to be dominated by the basic principles of capitalism, it is expected that social inequalities will continue to reproduce and new inequalities will occur. Therefore, it would be more convenient to speak of a 'knowledge capitalism' or 'knowledge economy', bearing in mind that the basic principles of advanced societies are still the accumulation of capital and that it is intended to subdue the generation and use of knowledge of market rules.
System
We understand a system as a structured or integrated series of processes to handle information or data characterized by repetitive input processing, data updating and output generation.
Hypermedia
It is the term by which the set of methods or procedures for writing, designing or composing content that integrate media such as: text, image, video, audio, maps and other emerging information media is designated, in such a way that the result obtained, also have the possibility of interacting with users.
The hypermedia structure of these contents, especially qualifies all of them, as a tool for human communication and interaction. In this sense, a hypermedia space is an area, without physical dimensions, that houses, enhances and structures people's activities, as can be seen in cases such as, among others: Social networks, Online collaboration platforms, Online teaching platforms, etc.
Conceptually, Hipermedia designates halves that can branch or execute presentations. Furthermore, they are responsive to user actions, to word and graphic pre-ordering systems and can be freely explored. Such a system can be edited, graphed, or designed by artists, designers, or publishers.
For Ted Nelson, the idea that such averages handle multiple spaces simultaneously or sequentially, makes the averages called hypermedia. Where the hyper prefix is a term borrowed from mathematics to describe multidimensional spaces. Hypertext is considered a subset of hypermedia and this in turn of multimedia, in the words of Woodhead in 1991. For Dale in 1997, hypertext is used to indicate the connections between documents of a textual nature and hypermedia refers to the connection between documents from various types of media.
Digitization
Digitization is the process of converting analog information into digital format. The converted materials can take various forms: letters, manuscripts, books, photographs, maps, sound recordings, microforms, films, ephemeris, three-dimensional objects, etc.
The goal of digitization is to improve access to materials. For this purpose, many of the digitized materials can be searched through internet databases.
So that the materials can be digitized there are several ways to capture them: by means of a scanner, digital photography, digital recording, etc. a wide variety of equipment is available to assist in this process.
Digital culture
Digital Culture is the study of the social, cultural, ethical and aesthetic aspects of Information and Communication technology. The main focus is the interaction between culture and technology.
Digital culture also studies the various social phenomena associated with the Internet and other new forms of communication. This concept generally does not only refer to the cultures of virtual communities, but extends to a wide range of cultural themes related to cyber themes.
Digital culture can be purely an online culture or it can encompass both physical and virtual worlds. That is, that digital culture is a culture that is frequently repeated from online communities, it is not only the culture that results from the use of the computer, but the culture that is directly mediated by the computer.
On the other hand, the internet and new technologies have been criticized for creating a gap in the way of socializing between people, as they become increasingly lonely and human contact disappears.
The digital culture and the use of new technologies have also created changes in the socio-economic environment of people as they deal with using the fastest, easiest, cheapest means to conduct business.
World of information, what is useful and what is not?
Given the communicative avalanche that floods our technically advanced societies, the need to learn habits or cognitive mechanisms of filtering and message selection is increasingly evident.
Developing such mechanisms, if done from good criteria, is one of the symptoms of autonomy in communication, that is, of media or audiovisual citizenship (Conill & Gonzálvez, 2004).
Technology is changing the way we receive and understand information. The Internet is reinforcing the current trend to actively search for what a person wants to see, read, or listen to, rather than stick to what publishers or producers have selected. However, the fascination with the transforming effect of all this allows us to forget that old-fashioned and expensive reports are still essential. In fact, organizations defending press freedom have registered losses worldwide, their power and influence are diminishing and their action is questioned day by day. (MOELLER, 2009).
Precisely one of the great tasks of education in digital and audiovisual culture is, as I understand it, to fight against a certain multiple digital affinity created in the heat of digital niches or electronic echo chambers.
The only difference between the perception capacity of an adult and that of a newborn is that the former already knows how to discriminate and classify all the information received sensory. This possibility exists thanks to the learning process that the individual lived, and that trained his innate capacities for this purpose.
This training consists of "identifying or differentiating the features of the visual field, which constitutes an intellectual operation rather than a strictly sensory one".
Technology in the organization
Electronic commerce
It consists of buying and selling products or services through electronic means, such as the Internet and other computer networks. Originally the term was applied to the conduct of transactions by electronic means such as Electronic Data Interchange, however with the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s it began to refer mainly to the sale of goods and services over the Internet, using electronic means such as credit cards as a form of payment.
Advantages of electronic commerce:
Improvements in distribution: The Web offers certain types of providers (book industry, information services, digital products) the possibility of participating in an interactive market, in which distribution or sales costs tend to zero, such as in the software industry, where products can be delivered immediately, progressively reducing the need for intermediaries.
Commercial communications by electronic means: Currently, most companies use the Web to inform customers about the company, apart from its products or services, both through internal communications and with other companies and customers; This facilitates business relationships, as well as customer support, since being available 24 hours a day, companies can retain their customers through an asynchronous dialogue that takes place at the convenience of both parties.
Operational benefits: Business use of the Web reduces errors, time and cost overruns in information processing. Suppliers reduce their costs by interactively accessing the databases of bid opportunities, sending them through the same means, and finally, reviewing the concessions in the same way; In addition, it facilitates the creation of new markets and segments, the increase in the generation of sales advantages, the greater ease of entering new markets, especially in geographically remote ones, and reaching them more quickly.
Ease of customer loyalty: Through the application of effective communication strategies and protocols that allow the end user of the company's web portal to raise concerns, raise requirements or simply make comments regarding its products or services, and if and Only if these comments are properly processed can an important element be created to achieve customer loyalty, and consequently increase the re-purchase of products and services, as well as the expansion of the range of coverage in the market.
Income through electronic commerce
Fig. 1: income through electronic commerce. (AMIPCI, 2012)
Internet publicity
In essence, «internet advertising» is a form of impersonal communication that is carried out through the network and in which an identified sponsor transmits a message with which it intends to inform, persuade or remind its target audience about the products., services, ideas or others that it promotes. All this, in order to attract visitors to your website, potential buyers, users, followers, to name a few. (Thompson, 2006)
Marketing taking advantage of social networks.
Advertisements on television, in the press, or on the radio are less effective than targeted advertising, based on the knowledge of each consumer's personal tastes. Social networks (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) can contribute this knowledge, since each member publishes on their own initiative their tastes, preferences, hobbies, phobias and illusions. In addition, he relates to other people, which adds information about himself. Based on this profile, the system could show each person relevant advertising according to their profile; and do it simultaneously for each individual in the network. But does it really work like this?
The truth is that today, the advantages of hypersegmentation are more theoretical than practical.
Until now, what has worked is segmented advertising, but on groups, not on individuals. It is not evident that attacking individuals is more profitable, because, although it is more effective (and that has yet to be proven), it is also much more expensive. In addition to the cost of delivering a different message to each person (what social networks offer), you have to consider the cost of creating those messages, a very time-intensive and resource-intensive task.
Social networks are the Internet service that has grown the most in recent years. MySpace or Facebook have more than 100 million monthly users each; in the United States 37% of adult users participate in these platforms; and in Spain, 83% of young Internet users use social networks and 25% are registered in more than one network.
How does it work?
The possibilities to use social networks within a marketing strategy are varied. Let's see some examples on the most popular networks:
Facebook offers several options to the advertiser, always respecting one criterion: no more than two ads per page.
Facebook Pages: the easiest option. The brand creates a profile on the network and can interact with users. Is free.
Social Ads: ads that incorporate user participation, giving credibility to the campaign. For example, if you are promoting a new Calvin Klein neighborhood, and a user (let's call it Elena) becomes a “fan” of the brand, their contacts might see a mini-banner with Elena's image and a message: “Elena is a fan by Calvin Klein. Discover its new fragrance here ”.
Beacon: Users receive information about purchases made by their friends on other websites, outside of Facebook. An indirect recommendation, since if your friend buys something, you may also be interested in it.
Applications: you can build an application (a program that is installed as another tool within Facebook), for users to use. For example, the application of a travel website allows you to reflect in which countries of the world you have been and place it on your profile.
Surveys: to know the opinion of users, you can launch surveys and get results in no time.
Insights: a measurement system on the above services, to know the details about the users who interact with your campaigns.
So far, the investment in social media marketing is small, around 5% of total online investment, and that percentage is not expected to grow much in the coming years…
Today it is a crime for organizations not to take advantage of social networks as a marketing strategy, it seems that there is mistrust in the effectiveness of such investment. What is certain is that launching an advertising campaign through radio or spectacular advertising is much more expensive than doing it through some social network, such as Facebook to name a few. Let's no longer talk about the costs of advertising through television commercials where airtime is excessively expensive.
Information systems
For some time now, various authors have contextualized information within Administration Science, and in turn within planning and decision-making, such as the conversion of information into action.
One way to differentiate information systems is as follows: (SENN, 1992)
- transaction processing systems, administrative information systems, and decision information systems.
The term computerization has often been used as a synonym for information systems. And although most authors agree to assume that an information system requires an adequate computerization process, what is also clear is that the construction of an information system does not always entail the use of information technologies. information. (GIL PECHUAN, 1997)
However, we assume that today any information system, no matter how small, requires minimal automation processes.
It also seems appropriate to point out that the different computer applications that work separately prevent the adequacy of an information system, so that as Gil Pechuan points out for the information system to exist, "it must contemplate the design of an integrated system that relates general information for the various functional applications of the company and thus allow to improve decision-making processes »(GIL PECHUAN, 1997).
Having made the above clarification, we assume that the application of information systems to the scope of the company, although it can be oriented to any type of organization, includes the following types:
- Management Information Systems (GIS), or Management Information Systems (MIS). Decision Support Systems (SSD), or Decision Support Systems (DSS). Executive Information Systems (SIE), or Executive Information Systems (EIS).
Management information systems (mis).
Management Information Systems are a set of tools that combine information technologies (hardware + software) with procedures that allow supplying information to the managers of an organization for decision-making.
Management information systems
We can affirm that these systems are made up of three functions; the collection of data, both internal and external; the storage and processing of information; and the transmission of information to managers.
It seems that the use of information systems for management left the information needs of business managers incomplete, thus creating different systems for decision-making. We will describe the Decision Support Systems, and the Information Systems for Executives.
Decision support systems (dss).
is an interactive computer-based information system that uses decision models and standards, which together with a database supports all phases of the decision-making process, mainly in semi-structured decisions under the full control of those who are dedicated to making them..
Features that differentiate a DSS from what is not:
- DSS supports all phases of the decision-making process: intelligence, design, choice and implementation. Support is provided at various levels of management teams, from top executives to grassroots managers. They support various levels of interdependent decisions or sequential and a variety of decision-making processes and styles. And they're easy to use.
Information systems for executives (eis).
EIS's have been originally confused with DSS's. This problem has been due to the existing confusion about what type of managerial level each one was focused on. EIS's oriented to senior management appear when company executives require data to make decisions but cannot spend time extracting what they need from the total set received. (FRIEND, 1988)
Broadly speaking, these types of systems are software, with a friendly retrieval system that provides electronic information to managers with quick access to information that is part of the company's key areas, helping to carry out management activities to achieve the objectives of the company. (BIRD, 1992)
Characteristics of an EIS:
- They are systems used by the top executives of companies, It is used by executives to control the work of other executives, Its main use is informative, It focuses on the general management of the organization, and for this it uses internal and external information, historical information to make predictions, and all kinds of numerical and textual data.
To define more precisely what an Executive Information System is, we list the characteristics that are its own:
- Be personalized to the executive as an individual. Extract, filter, consolidate and visualize critical data. Access in real time to the variables that define the state of the company. View trends and provide incident reports. Alarm mechanisms to attract the attention of the user, before important deviations of the critical variables. User-friendly interface, which requires minimal training for its use. Used directly by executives, without intermediaries, it presents the information that simultaneously incorporates graphics, tables, texts and sounds.
However, not for all authors, EISs have their own personality, and for others, an executive information system is nothing more than a simple management decision support system that is specially designed for executives.
We must emphasize that it is not always possible to technically differentiate what is a DSS and what is an EIS, so that rather the differences are regulated by the type of decisions they support. Thus, we think that a DSS assumes structured decisions, that is, clearly formalized problems; while the EIS assume that category of decisions that we had described as not programmable or intuitive.
Either way, both of them require the use of information resources, both formal and informal, and information from both outside the organization and from within it.
Knowledge management
It has been in the last decade when it has been discovered that people become the key to organizations, that they must base their growth and competitiveness on the creativity and initiative of their members.
Thus, knowledge management emerges as the concept capable of articulating intellectual capital and all the potential that human resources carry within them, and transforming them into value for action.
Some authors consider that knowledge management appears because information management was concerned with explicit knowledge, that is to say, that contained in documents, and not tacit knowledge (NONAKA, 1995).
The new organizational structures require different asset and resource management. Knowledge and knowledge become the basis of the strategy and the true asset of any organization, represented in its individuals.
Let's see some characteristics of knowledge management. Earl proposes four components for a company to be able to create a strategy capable of generating knowledge:
- knowledge systems, networks, knowledge workers, and apprentice organizations.
Knowledge management involves creating new knowledge, managing the knowledge that is disseminated in the organization and incorporated into products, services and systems, which does not have the same meaning as production, storage or retrieval that is more typical of the management of information. (NONAKA, 1995)
Knowledge management becomes the process that ensures the development and application of all kinds of relevant knowledge in a company in order to improve its problem-solving capacity and contribute to the sustainability of its competitive advantages. (ANDREU, 1999)
We understand in the theoretical framework of this work, that the objective of knowledge management is people as a source of information, and the transformation of all that knowledge into some structured form that allows it to be processed and incorporated into an information system.
Information management VS Knowledge management
Some authors claim that knowledge management is based in part on information management.
This statement is based on the similarities and differences between information management and knowledge management, and the need for correct information management to carry out adequate knowledge management.
-While it is true, both to do pure information management and to do knowledge management, information and communication technologies are needed, the use of these technologies will have very different approaches depending on whether you want to manage information or knowledge. To manage knowledge, specific computing tools are available such as data warehouses, partial data warehouses; data mining, etc., which have little to do with the classic computing tools of conventional management. (Maestre Yenes, 2000) -
The tools proposed by Maestre are valid, but there are also other tools and systems that are perhaps more conventional and little recognized in this knowledge management environment, which until now have been mostly identified as part of the activities that management of Information such as: the upward flow of information, virtual libraries, catalogs, reports, presentations, databases, statistical systems, email, instant messaging, teleconferences, videoconferences, among others.
The main differences between information management and knowledge management are established based on the following: (Mcelroy, 2003)
- Knowledge management is interested in the declaration or demand made about the value, truthfulness, context or actions, as well as in the production of the required knowledge and the ways to validate, share and use it.
And he points out that information management:
- It tends to manage products and their information content and attributes, and not to demand value, truthfulness or context. None of the processes and supports accompany the production, distribution and use of related knowledge.
We agree with this approach in relation to the importance of knowledge management, the establishment of ways to share and use it, as a distinctive element of knowledge management supported by the intensive and appropriate use of information and communication technologies.
This statement also implies that ways to share knowledge can be included in the set of processes and tools that allow the systemic integration of actions for the use and use of knowledge, information and accumulated experience in the qualitative development of an organization.
It is also established that:
- Knowledge management is a need of organizations, it is a higher stage in its operation. Information management is the basis of knowledge management, it facilitates its implicit knowledge. Effective knowledge management requires hybrid solutions between people and Technology. Sharing and using knowledge are requirements of knowledge management. The organization and design of information systems can make the organization smarter. Knowledge management is inherent in any organization as it seeks its best performance and competence.
Many of the authors studied recognize that information and knowledge are linked to people, each on a different level, where information is made up of data that, when added value, becomes information, while knowledge is information transformed by reasoning. The most important process that should be promoted in any organization is sharing this knowledge. However, all point out that sharing knowledge is what most barriers it encounters in its realization.
These references demonstrate the importance of adequately incorporating the elements set forth in the "Bases for the introduction of knowledge management in Cuba", to achieve the coherent integration of all the elements within the organization.
Business intelligence
It is a business strategy that seeks to increase the performance of the company or the competitiveness of the business, through the intelligent organization of its historical data (transactions or daily operations), usually residing in corporate Data Warehouses or departmental Data Marts. (Innocent, 2004)
The concept of BI is not new, since the idea was introduced in the mid-1960s, it has continued to evolve into more effective solutions adapted to the prevailing new technological environment.
With hardware costs on the decline, more powerful processors, more efficient Internet-Web dominance and management software, the concept of business intelligence (BI) is placed within the reach of many modern organizations who are interested in maximizing their investments in the computing area.
Decision support systems were the origin of everything, then similar concepts such as Executive Information Systems appeared, until reaching the current state of the art. The pioneers of the field were Dr. Ralph Timbal, considered the Dr. of the DSS, and Bill Inmon, considered the father of the Data Warehouse.
Data Warehouse
BI is a business necessity. The main reasons that justify an investment in BI include:
- Visibility of what is happening in the business Centralized reports / reports Analysis of trends and “prediction” of the future Making effective decisions about products that work and what does not work Centralizes dispersed data “Validates” transactional systems
The main BI “products” are usually the following: Balanced Scorecards, corporate dashboards, KPI (Key Performance Indicators), CPI (Corporate Performance Indicators), reports and charts of all kinds, among many others. On the contrary, BI supplies are a huge “trail” of data that the company leaves behind from its daily operations.
We could affirm that the company is based on an immense "mine" of data, exploiting it and obtaining data to become valuable information is the challenge of BI projects. Its implementation requires careful analysis, design and implementation. Companies usually undertake corporate BI projects, or corporate Data Warehouse. They tend to be by range or level of need for the information: Strategic, Management or Operational.
From a technological point of view, the central element of BI is usually a data warehouse or data marts (or both). They are large corporate databases that house data grouped and processed usually by dimensions: region, time, product, business unit, among others. (Martínez, 2002)
Business intelligence projects are typically initiated through senior management, strategic planning or marketing departments, and require IT expertise for implementation.
Today it is very easy to access information stored in a business intelligence reservoir (data mart or data warehouse) through traditional tools such as MS Excel. What it is about is to fully exploit the potential of existing tools and maximize the return on business investment.
Conversely, if the end user requires more in-depth analysis of the data stored in the data marts or data warehouse, the concept of data mining is the most appropriate to carry out a more in-depth exploitation and in tune with the analytical needs of the data.
We now know that Business Intelligence is a compendium of technologies and applications that allow information to be collected from different sources in your company, stored, analyzed and provided to all types of users in your company so that they can make better decisions about deal.
Business Intelligence is the set of products and services that allow end users to quickly and easily access and analyze information for business decision-making at the operational, tactical and strategic levels.
Business intelligence
The term Business Intelligence (Business Intelligence) first appeared in 1996 when a Gartner Group report stated the following:
In 2000, Information Democracy will emerge in forward-thinking companies, with business intelligence information and applications broadly available to employees, consultants, customers, suppliers, and the public. The key to thriving in a competitive market is to stay ahead of the competition. Making sound business decisions based on accurate and current information requires more than intuition. Data analysis, reporting, and query tools can help business users wade through a sea of data to synthesize valuable information from it - today these tools are collectively divided into a category called "Business Intelligence."
By the year 2000, Information Democracy will emerge in cutting-edge companies, with Business Intelligence applications widely available to employees, consultants, customers, suppliers, and the general public. The key to emerging in a competitive market is to stay ahead of your competitors. More than intuition is required to make correct decisions based on exact and updated information. Data reporting, querying, and analysis tools can help business users navigate through a sea of information to synthesize the valuable information found in it - today this category of tools is called "Intelligence of Business"
Take advantage of "The Cloud".
Small businesses and large organizations share a large number of basic information technology needs, such as communication, security, reliability, storage, and desktop management. However, small businesses have fewer resources, so they have a limited ability to make large capital investments in IT.
Before continuing, I would like to demystify the fact that the path to the cloud is complicated and stony. It may be uphill, but what business decision is not?
Although it is true that this relatively new technology can be of great help to organizations, a series of steps must always be followed to correctly implement technologies of this type in an organization.
As in any process of change, before moving, we must evaluate where we are, where we want to go (and what we want to achieve), when, what means we have, how we want to use them and what state we want to get to. This applies equally if we are planning a leisure trip, as if we are talking about a business process.
Continuing with the argument, it is convenient to go through the following phases:
1. Preparation: assess criticality and risks
Preparing the way to upload to the cloud implies evaluating the criticality of the technological resource that we are going to migrate (infrastructure, platform or application) as well as the risks that can occur if it fails. It is possible that many risks are already evaluated in a systems plan that the company has, but in other cases it is not. Likewise, it is necessary to know the advantages that the cloud offers us, in order to make them coincide with the most immediate objectives that we have and that have led us to make the decision to approach it (costs, reliability, speed, volume of business, flexibility, etc.).
Questions such as:
- What is the immediate objective? How much time do I have? Is it necessary to have high availability of the resource? In what amortization state is the investment of the current resource? At this point, I must emphasize that when we talk about infrastructures, there are suppliers in the market that are prone to negotiate the acquisition of equipment in full amortization within a global plan that is carried out together. How long could the company operate without this resource? What risks is the company willing to take during the change process? What type of information (business data) do we want to be involved?
All these reflections, and many others, must be made before and during the journey, because they will be subsequent conditions for various choices that must be made. In many cases not all of the company's technological resources may (still) be in the cloud, but it is important that at this time we know which ones, and why.
2. Choice: and the service chosen is…
The preparation phase must have allowed us to decide where to start. Let's imagine that we are going to replace the company's intranet with a corporate social network in the cloud. It is time to think what should be taken into account now? The following points should be considered:
Objectives to achieve. They must be listed and quantified, already applied to this specific service. They can be economic (costs or sales), efficiency, business, or of any other nature. Let's set rational goals, easy to measure.
Budget. It is crucial to know what the chosen resource currently costs (investment if any, maintenance costs) and to assign a budget to the new one.
Equipment. It is necessary to appoint a team to be in charge of the project, which can be a single person, and which will be in charge of coordinating the necessary internal resources, of the adoption and of the fulfillment of the objectives.
Weather. When you want to have the cloud service operational. This parameter will be estimated, because it must be negotiated with the supplier when choosing, but it is interesting to have established it as a milestone. For example, the Board of Directors meets in April, and by then we should have the operational service in the cloud.
Indicators. Those that allow to measure the success of the migration. They will normally be measurements of the objectives that you want to achieve.
Similarly, in the election we must establish guidelines on the number of users to use the service, their profile (intensive or sporadic use, consultation or management, itinerant or internal), from which devices you want to use (desktops, laptops or mobile devices), data flow required (to establish volumes), and possible spikes in usage or expected growth. The previous points can be extremely simple if the service that we will upload to the cloud is basic. In any case, they will help us to negotiate with the service provider and facilitate the transition, because having this clear information, it will be easier to know how much the service costs and if a specific provider meets the needs we have.
It is also important to reflect on who manages what? In a cloud service, the more complex it is, the more factors intervene.
3. Evaluate suppliers and products
Possibly, this phase of provider choice, is made parallel to the previous one in a part of the way, because the wealth of Cloud services (or Cloud products) that exists today, offer us possibilities and comforts that perhaps we would not have considered. To choose well, we must base ourselves on the pillars: company-product-services.
Company. Information about the company will be useful to us, its trajectory, client portfolio, solvency, and possibly figures. I must say that there are small companies that are offering excellent cloud products worldwide, as well as large companies that offer very bad ones. It all depends on what we are looking for.
Product. Does it cover the expectations that we have already analyzed? If not, does it offer reasonable alternatives? Here comes into play all the work previously done in phases 1 and 2.
Services. Here I refer to everything that surrounds the cloud product that we are going to contract, that is, service level contracts (SLA, or CNS), the terms of permanence if they exist, the conditions of service, the security criteria that they apply, certifications, as well as the entire chain of suppliers that they have.
One of the advantages of the cloud is elasticity, that is, being able to contract and pay only for what I use, at all times. That is, in the example of the social network, hire 50 users only for the summer campaign, or eliminate the X functionality that is not used. If we are going to need elasticity, we will have to evaluate the speed and reliability with which the resources that are contracted can be increased or decreased.
I would like to make a brief reflection now on security and data. Although less and less, it is still a barrier to upload to the cloud and we must take it into account. In the first point we were talking about risks. There is always the risk of a natural disaster that cuts off access to data, or there could be a security flaw that compromises my information. Therefore, this issue must be discussed with the supplier during the election stage. It is very convenient to know the supplier's operating processes, its security criteria and the certifications it has, and the confidentiality commitments it may have with its employees or those that interest us. I would like to quote Pedro Prestel, President of EUROCLOUD, at a conference,"Businesses need to know how their information is protected and how its integrity and availability is guaranteed"
As we have already made a budget, we will have more tools to evaluate the pricing policy of each supplier that we analyze. Normally a periodic amount is paid while using the service, which can be called subscription, fee, rate, or in various ways. What usually varies is the amount of concepts that are taken into account to pay (computing power, number of machines, users, space, functionality, etc.). For this reason, the previous analysis will allow us to know the price to pay for the service we want, both in the average case and in the points or peaks that we had calculated. It will also allow us to know possible savings by levels of recruitment, or by periods of permanence.
4. Action plan and contingency plan
Well, we have chosen a supplier. Now is the time to prepare the contingency plan, what happens if…? It is time to close the service level agreement, to establish how the service is monitored, and in general, to prepare the action plan.
In this phase, the members of the team we appoint already intervene, who must be aware of the conditions of the service, the indicators to be evaluated, and the deadlines that we have set for the start-up. They will also be in charge of internal change, of ensuring that the “new style” of doing what we have chosen reaches all the target audience.
When the service is activated, it is time to go into normal operation, and measure.
5. Measure impact and satisfaction: check indicators
We must know if we have met the proposed objectives, and to what extent. But the indicators will not be used only to know the level of satisfaction and compliance in a first phase, but to know its evolution over time and to assess the supplier's performance. This knowledge will allow us to take measures in time and will avoid possible damages.
The indicators that have been chosen will depend on each company, and can be economic (especially in a first stage of cost reduction), business efficiency (reaching the market earlier, consuming less time or resources in a specific procedure, variation in sales or customer satisfaction), image or competitiveness (which lately is measured a lot based on the impact on social networks and specialized forums).
6. Maintenance
If we have come this far, then we have adopted a new cloud service, which is now in "maintenance" format. We will be enjoying the advantages of the cloud, with the precautions we have taken. It is convenient to let some time pass, check that success is sustainable over time, and therefore we are ready for the next step: What is the next thing we upload to the cloud?
Culture and the digital medium
Faced with the feeling of an overwhelming future and the danger of an excessive load… 10 points of reflection:
1. Computer technology is in a rudimentary state, although constant propaganda wants to make us think otherwise…
Entering it is a source of disappointment, anger and confusion, waste of time… and investment.
Equipment and programs, hardware and software are subject to a cycle of "programmed obsolescence": everything will be outdated or useless in very short time.
2. But at the same time, the Network today offers a unique set of possibilities for the dissemination of information, for contact with the public and the development of cultural projects.
Publishing is no longer something available only to companies with media.
Diffuse either. In any cultural project the problem is to reach our audience; the bottleneck is distribution, dissemination… That is why a direct medium such as the web can only be beneficial: as a basis for, or as a complement to, paper activity…
3. What is the network today? A very big thing, very messy, very complicated. Half a billion web pages, growing at a rate of one million per day, are many pages…
How to stand out, or simply, fulfill our mission there? There are technological aspects (such as the control of the search engines), but others more human: to know our goals, to direct ourselves to those who can appreciate us, and for them to tell each other…
How do we now know the existence of magazines, which books are being published? For bookstores (but where there are none, or they are small…), for news in the press, reviews (but they are very few…), and above all for the notice of friends, for appointments in other publications…
4. There are two models to be on the Net: the skyscraper model, and the tree model. The skyscraper requires planning, licenses, materials… The tree, soil, water and sun.
The skyscraper grows as planned. A tree spreads its branches in the direction of more light, or twists to fit a rock…
The skyscraper is born with the skeleton that will hold you forever, and with the height it will reach. The tree adapts its structure (thickness of the trunk, number of branches…) to your needs and who knows where it will go?
5. The sun is the project. Let's think about what we are: our online presence will be a reformulation of who we are.
It is not always easy to know what we are (or what we sell): paper, information services, ideology, aesthetic pleasure and tactile sensuality, good conscience…? Some of these things are not transplantable to the Net.
Let's think about what we want to be: maybe the network gives us opportunities to become that. (If we already like being what we are, wonderful!)
6. The soil, the base, is the domain of the medium (who today make a magazine, don't they know about typography, correction, layout, grammage, registers, inks and repaints, distribution and points of sale?). You cannot be well in a medium that is not known.
If there is suspicion, ignorance, insecurity about the Internet, it is best to go to a minimal presence. But it must exist.
To know the medium, the first thing is to use it: and it's worth it! Let's explore, let's navigate. Let's surround ourselves with people who do it. Let's put young and cyber people together with us.
Knowing is also taking advantage. On the Web there are many free resources: for domain names, search engines, news, images, fonts, forums, document managers, magazine publishing programs… (example:
That we are concerned (input) design, finish, perfection. When there is something to be said, it is said whatever:
7. Water is time. Everything costs a lot of time: either the managers put the time (free), or you have to pay it to collaborators.
The more interaction with the public, the more time: the forums, lists, chats, bulletins, which require attention, care, promotion, are very expensive.
8. Let's have the courage to open our works to the Internet. Let's be generous: on the Web, the more you give, the more you have.
Many of us already produce our works digitally: getting them online is only a small plus.
Giving our production in digital form is opening it to uses that were never intended for it.
By giving in an open and flexible environment like the Internet, we can discover that we have more things than we thought. Our internal documentation can be made external, and serve others. Our contacts make us communication hubs.
Giving is getting in touch with those who want what we have. It is knowing them and knowing their needs.
9. To have our production in digital form is to have it available for any medium, already existing or that may appear: electronic books (dedicated portable devices), production of copies on request,…
10. And yet, and after all that has been said… There will be projects that never make it to the Web, and they will be very good as they are. There will be bad projects and they will get to the Internet badly, and they will be very bad. And there will be good projects that properly reach the Net, and those will conquer the earth.
Conclusions
Digital culture is a set of ideologies and customs that are acquired as information technologies advance, in the use of new devices as well as new applications and software. For problem solving, for communication and entertainment.
In organizations, digital culture should not be an option, it is a need that must be covered as quickly as possible, since if this gap is left open, the organization could not adapt to the new standards for the exchange of information. internal as well as external.
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