Welcome to Fall Semester Information Systems

Fall semester is here already. I hope everyone had a productive summer. I spent this summer doing research on the semantic web and writing papers. My research found that soon most of the internet’s information will be linked and understood by machines. Soon artificial agents will be using the internet to help us poor humans make sense of the "web of data". Who said "surfing the web" was only for humans. The semantic web will change the way managers work and this semester we’ll explore how WEB 3.0 will change your life.

I also attended the American Accounting Associations annual meeting. A key theme was that accountants (and also marketing, finance and management and CIS majors ) will soon need to be aware of new technologies such as XBRL. If you don't know what XBRL is, you've come to the right class. My goal this semester is to prepare students to survive and thrive with the technology changes that will up-end business management in the next 5  years.

Random Fact - German soccer teams are sponsored by cell phone companies and fans are passionate wearing T-MOBILE or VERIZON jerseys of their home teams ( and you don't want to be between the opposing fans at the beer garden).

This semester I'm teaching Information Systems (bacs 300) and Systems Analysis and Design (bacs487) for CIS majors. This semester I’ll be teaching such software hits as Access, Excel, Visio, Twitter, Google Docs, MS Project, .Net,LINQ, Second Life, Twine, Rational Software Architect, Simple DB - it is exciting (and scarey to think) that none of this software that we are using this semester even existed 3 years ago in its current form . Who knows what software we will be using 3 years from now?