Introduction
I have had the good luck of attending several workshops recently and these workshops have been very inspirational. They provide opportunities for people to ask questions about a certain subject or process if a business seminar is and so forth. However, my interest has increased dramatically to attend more workshops and seminars at any opportunity I get. Even though I made an effort off attending them, I remain open-minded as most of them allow learning something new that I could not have otherwise learned and this has improved my workflow.
Workshops and seminars introduce that unique state of mind and generation of ideas as well as easy to study techniques which help members who attend on individual and professional levels. Most seminars motivate the participants to make use of their inherent potential as they seek to achieve their excellence.
Inventory Mobile Apps
Description of the Session
Last month I had an opportunity to attend Mobile Apps Workshops that was hosted in North Wales by the center for advanced software technology. The session essentially mostly addresses of Apps in the market place. A brief from the presentation went as follows, –
Mobile application interfaces provide inimitable challenges when being designed for the users’ experience. There are numerous concerns like limited navigation experience, the smaller size of the screen, and wider use among the population.
These issues are obstacles that when not carefully tackled, can easily derail even the most valuable applications (Pearson, 2010, para. 3). The developers and carriers are competing aggressively for clients so that they can provide them with the ability to do almost everything they want on their mobile phones. With this in mind, observing the basic usability guidelines help to remove obstacles from the course for the application designer and the final users (Garran, 2011, para. 2).
The good this is that once a designer has had an application developed, making sure that that application gets space in the spotlight is the next issue. He or she has to understand what it takes to get a customer that can use the application and enjoy it. Making the customers buy the product is another huddle as these customers may lack interest or they could be greatly excited and even share the new app with friends hence increasing the market (Pearson, 2010, para. 3). This is the course from designer issues to marketing of the application. This seminar was majorly set to help engage with customers by offering targeted, relevant and specific content and messaging. The seminar hence covered the subject of content and design together with how to ensure an application is noticed.
It’s Importance
This seminar was very important because besides just providing the knowledge that designers and users of mobile apps need, it was a forum for interacting with experts and the market. In that short period, it was possible to gain a lot of contacts and acquaintances hence increased one’s social and business networks. There were numerous technical experts from the mobile phone industry; there were knowledgeable. iPhone, Android, and iPad developers in the workshop, and also professional and experienced graphic designers. Besides the professionals in mobile technology, there were also entrepreneurs, entertainers, and tourism and health workers.
As the world continues to evolve and embrace the use of technology, having the current information concern the technology I want to use was very crucial (Pearson, 2010, para. 4). This meeting had all the expertise and professionals I needed with their updated information. The current technology can be very beneficial and this is what I sought
What I Understood From The Seminar
I understand from the seminar that over the years, mobile phone apps have evolved a great deal and in the current marketplace, they have been commodified or commoditized and there are amazing many new features on almost all the new phones. This was not predictable in the past s is possible but it is happening and this is evidenced by greater developments like the iPhone, the iPad, and the Android they offer unique services that were unheard of before. They also have the potential to grow as the technologies come with a greater possibility (Gahran, 2011, para. 4).
The new technologies have provided developers with greater opportunity to continue innovating and initiating greater and popular solutions. I learned tips on making apps marketable and defining the marketplace (Pearson, 2010, para. 5). I also got important tips on the desirability of the mobile apps in mobile and their availability and use on the market and the benefits of having them. I also learned what characteristics comprised the best application and new knowledge in Microsoft Windows 7 and the new gadget on the market taking the youth by storm, Google android.
SEO
Description
SEO described the technology used on internet searches. The acronym means Search Engine Optimization and when hiring this, the company or individual client is making a very big decision that has the potential of improving their sites and also saving time (Kent, 2008, p. 57). However, this also poses a great threat of damaging the site and their repute. It is important to research the possible advantages and the risks that irresponsible SEO can cause to the site. Many SEO’s and several agencies and consultants provide very crucial information that website owners find very valuable (Kent, 2008, p. 57). All these people can be found in the seminar.
The seminar I attended begun with the result in mind and this is to better the position of the business or site. The seminar offers a chance to learn practical and affordable means of ensuring that as a business or as an individual, one stays ahead of the competition and the staggering economy (Kent, 2008, p. 57). The seminar focused on result-oriented marketing strategies, one-on-one consultation for the professional in the industry, and ideas considered ready to use.
The Importance
The seminar appealed to me and many other people who attended in several ways based on the different career paths each of them had. The business owners were inspired differently from marketers; the same way master designers drew different inspiration from webmasters. We saw it all. So whether one has been in the industry for a long or wants just to get first learning experience, this seminar was a perfect chance since it was like dropping a company website into an individual’s hands.
the seminar benefitted the attendees who came from different career paths in the computer and internet field. There were business owners, public relations officers, and company marketers. There were web designers and developers and advertising agents and also corporate communication experts.
The seminar also offers greater knowledge of the SEO basics for people who wanted to outsource or do it by themselves. I learned the principles of search engine friendly design that are available, the strategy to include the SEO in the marketing strategy (McNally, 2011, para. 3). The major lessons for me were learning how to select a keyword and including them in a copy and the ways to avoid large outfall or setbacks in the SEO (Kent, 2008, p. 59). This seminar was however more beneficial to business owners who would be more interested in learning leveraging strategies.
What I learned
At the seminar, I was taken through the strategy and tactics to run SEO. The presenters at the seminar had the presentation divided into three components. The first was the overview of SEO where they identified the major elements of the SEO process and then divided them into manageable phases (Grappone & Couzin, 2008, p. 78). The second was the SEO flowchart which helped me to identify the need and tactics of what is needed to succeed in stages highlighted in the SEO overview (Grappone & Couzin, 2008, p. 78).
The presentations of the seminar taught me a lot of tactics in SEO. I can now be able to figure out the keywords and phrases to use on a website. I also learned how to evade committing SEO mistakes that could seriously lower the ranking of the site. I can also be able to know how to choose the best SEO tools that ate important for my site (McNally, 2011, para. 3). In an organization, there a strategy that can be used t to get the whole team involved in the SEO process.
Cloud Computing Technology
In the seminar, the broad description of cloud computing was to provide scalable IT solutions on the internet. This is in contrast to the traditional way of hosting the website like university networks and these resources included the services and the applications and infrastructure where they would be operating (Vouk, 2004, p. 237). By being able to deploy the IT infrastructure and services on the network business can purchase these resources whenever the need arise and this is cost-effective as the cost of acquiring and maintaining software and hardware all the time. Cloud computing provides the information technology industry with the capacity to be adjusted very fast and simple to accommodate the changing demand.
While remotely hosted, managed services have been for a very long-time been looked at as part of the IT landscape (Vouk, 2004, p. 237). The increased use of cloud computing is being propelled by ever-present networks; include better work standards and the increased virtualization of hardware and software.
The Importance of the seminar
Cloud computing is considered to be terminology that includes all the technologies and techniques that are commonly used in the information technology industry. This could as well be interpreted to mean the technologies that are used for data hosting centers. The terminology is however not accepted in most cases for the improvement made in hosting like utility hosting which allows policy-based controlling of the computer resource and the real-time use and management (Vouk, 2004, p. 239).
The term can also refer to the data center hosting only instead of referring to an important internet application which it is. In this seminar, the talks and presentations that were made encouraged executives to develop more explicit strategies in cloud computing using the more explicit and longer-term perception of the possible trajectories that available in this technology. The actual power of the technology is found in the potential over time to think and design new IT structures at the most basic level.
The seminar taught three important issues in that technology. First, were the characteristics of what is purported to be the next-generation architecture of Cloud technology that will help in hosting substantive changes at the international level. The second is the transformation the industry has to undergo from the current to the next-generation architecture to simplify them and to better align them to the businesses they are used to manage, and offer strategies of externalizing and managing policy across all the architecture layers (Vouk, 2004, p. 241). The third was to pinpoint the feature that could as well be eliminated by shifting into the next generation completely.
Essentially, the cloud and service grid of computing is very important, nonetheless, it does not meet the whole of the distributed or enterprise need. Nonetheless, they can address most of them in a manner that allows a smooth transition from the current generation of technology to that next level (Buyya et al., 2009, p. 23).
What I learned
In the rapidly growing industry of computer use, the IT department has forecasted that the demand for application and the ability to grow, as well as the time and money to be used in developing resources in-house of acquiring them from other dealers and use them in the house, will change dramatically (Buyya et al., 2009, p. 23). This helped me to learn that cloud computing different institutions can procure IT services for local providers and the campus constituents can access them on the internet (Vouk, 2004, p. 244). The use of email for instance can be used and a very strong implication of the IT operations in the current institutions and can be obtained from several sources.
The cloud computing technology is a very fundamentally different type of technology that helps IT organizations with a model they can operate on and that take advantage of the advanced web applications and networks that are as a result of interoperability (Mell & Grance, 2009, p. 8).
Cloud computing helps organizations in monitoring their needs and make very fast adjustments to meet the new needs. The cloud computing technology helps the organization and the providers to enhance the standardization of the protocols and processes so that the many features of cloud computing can interoperate effectively and properly (Mell & Grance, 2009, p. 8).
Oracle
Description of the case
Oracle technology helps organizations to capitalize on their assets like the workforce, the processes, and content to deliver their best results. However, there is a major challenge of poor collaboration and poor visibility across the organizational departments and some points of its operation (Feuerstein & Pribyl, 2009, p. 21). The seminar was about the intensive study of the oracle database engine.
The main objective of the seminar was to improve the DBAs with an interest in database management. It is very difficult and this covered a very large piece of information. The audience was kept low taking notes and coping sample scripts (Stephens, 2005, p. 9). The seminar targeted mainly the developers and designers and this was because there has been a great change in the versions of the oracle as new features eliminate old problems but come with theory own challenges.
The seminar was designed to help people to understand the infrastructure that oracle builds and is based on. The seminar offered a chance for attendees to see the way the oracle applications works and help teach how to carry personal investigation of the challenges, opportunities, and expenses of various approaches of dealing with design needs.
The Importance
The seminar increased awareness of the oracle application which comprised applications software and business software that are now widely used though some people or users do not have a clear understanding of the potential of these applications. The oracle seminar addresses a number of the oracle corporation’s software portfolio to the attendee.
What I learned
To run and coordinate big companies like oracle corporations, there is software referred to as EARP – Enterprise Resource Planning. The oracle application is not only one large software, rather it is a collection of software that is referred to as modules that are integrated and communicate or link to each other (Feuerstein & Privy, 2009, p. 21). To be integrated means that the system has the application incorporated in the daily operation as part of the routine. For instance, the account payable and purchasing are issues that deal with vendors. The oracle purchasing will therefore handle all the requirements and purchase the orders to the vendors while the accounts payable will deal with all the payments needed to be made to the vendors (Greenwald et al., 2004, p. 54).
I learned how the integrated approach to the content management and portal could assist in making moiré accurate and prompt decisions based on the total knowledge in the organization.
Focus on Product Management for the Irish Software Industry
The description
The Irish software industry has been known to be a hotbed for development and innovation at the global scene, Irish Software Association, 2002, para. 3. There are several very active software product firms for the region and some of them include IONA, Cape Clear, Riverdeep, and Corvil among others (Buckley & McGoey, 2003, p. 23). The industry is comprised of about 900 firms and these employ many people and do a lot of exporting. The future economy of the Irish software industry is also affecting the country at large as this is the second exporter in the country. The seminar, therefore, was held to address the key challenges that the sector is facing and its ability to deal with them to be able to continue innovation, marketing, and operation.
Importance
The seminar helped to identify several challenges that were facing the Irish software industry. These were the obstacles to its capability as a form of intellectual since and technology resource. This was based on the previous Irish software surveys in 2002 which was able to identify gaps in the level of market research and development of better products (Buckley & McGoey, 2003, p. 23).
The seminar highlighted the market research and product management as being undervalued in the Irish industry. Many companies felt that they were comfortable with their competitive intelligence and more than half of them believed that they were adequately equipped with the necessary knowledge as well as understanding the market and competition. The way they attained that were quite uncertain since many of the firms did not have product management function at all.
What I learned
I learned that in case the Irish software industry needs to improve, several changes have to be made in its operations. Often the founders, who first developed the idea and then the product and consequently moving to the management level, do not institute the product management function in their firms (O’Malley & O’Gorman, 2001, p, 312). As such, the subsequent products do not deliver the anticipated growth and this is evident s the founder special insights go missing. If therefore Ireland has to develop a critical mass of software firms of scale, then there has to be a product management strategy in place (Irish Software Association, 2002, para. 3).
The industry needs product management expertise just as the sales capability was improved by seeking experts; world-class experts (O’Malley & O’Gorman, 2001, p, 312). Simply put, I learned that product management was a decisive factor as to whether a product was to be or not, it was responsible for building it and telling the rest of the world about it.
Reference List
Buckley, J. & McGoey, I., 2003, ‘Innovative Product Management And Marketing Strategies For Increased Competitiveness Of Hi-Tech Firms In Emerging Global Markets,’ Proceedings Of The Doctoral Colloquium, Department Of Management And Marketing, UCC.
Buyya, R., et al., 2009. Market-Oriented Cloud Computing: Vision, Hype, And Reality for Delivering It Services as Computing Utilities, Keynote Paper, Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications, China.
Feuerstein, S., & Privy, B., 2009. Oracle Pl/SQL Programming, New York, O’Reilly Media Inc.
Gahran, A. 2011, What’s A Mobile App?
Grappone, J., & Couzin, G., 2008. Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, New York, John Wiley & Sons.
Greenwald, R., Stackowiak, R., & Stern, J., 2004. Oracle Essentials, 3e: Oracle Database 10g, Sebastopol, CA, O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Irish Software Association, 2002, Sales and Marketing Capability Survey Conducted by International Ventures. Web.
Kent, P. 2008. Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, New York, Wiley Publishing Inc.
McNally, K., 2011. Search Engine Optimization Helps Drive Website Traffic, The Herald News. Web.
Mell, P., & Grance, T., 2009. ‘The Nist Definition of Cloud Computing,’ National Institute of Standards And Technology, Vol. 53, Issue: 6, p. 5.
O’Malley. E., & O’Gorman, C., 2001, ‘Competitive Advantage In The Irish Indigenous Software Industry And The Role Of Inward Foreign Direct Investment,’ European Planning Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3, Pp. 303-321.
Pearson, C., 2010. Presentation on Mobile Apps at Inventorium North Wales, Mobile Apps Workshop. Web.
Stephens, S., 2005. ‘Enabling Semantic Web Inferencing With Oracle Technology: Applications In Life Sciences, Rules And Rule Markup Languages For The Semantic Web,’ Lecture Notes In Computer Science, Vol. 3791 pp. 8-16.
Vouk, M.A. 2004. ‘Cloud Computing–Issues, Research and Implementations,’ Journal of Computing and Information Technology, 16(4), 235–246.