B-COP Summary

The tools we used in last class proved to be very useful in terms of analyzing web evolution and to see how companies have really used their websites as a means to communicate to all types of customers. I choose Anheuser-Busch as my company as they are the 'King of Beers' and have the largest distribution of any alcoholic beverage maker in the US.

While I found it pretty interesting to browse around through their website and learn about their other business ventures, I think the B-COP analysis for this type of website is not quite as useful as one that is engaged in e-commerce or a transaction based site. The purpose of most of their sites is to inform consumers about their brands, the company, history, etc. While the site has involved considerably with more engaging HTML, Flash, etc. It's not a site that your average beer drinker would visit on a weekly basis.

Being a racing fan and having recently attended the Portland Grand Prix run by the American Le Mans series, it's amazing how much telemetry data teams gather to diagnose and improve race cars. If I had to pick another profession to go into, it would be automotive engineering and the IT side. Here's an article about how teams are using the data and what it means: http://news.com.com/In+race+cars%2C+high-speed+data+has+new+meaning/2100-11389_3-6100399.html?tag=nefd.lede

Books, Books, Books....

Books I'm reading

Before I started the MBA program I used to read quite a bit....so during the summer term I had some time to catch up on some books I had been wanting to read. I just finished The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman and loved the book. I highly recommend this to any MBA student or anybody that is in the tech field. Friedman's views are quite astounding and he is not advocating outsourcing by any means or in all cases. Before I started the book, alot of people gave me comments about how the books is all about outsourcing, but its not. Globalization 2.0 is here and is taking place as I type this. As more and more people are connected, companies and individuals are leveraging knowledge across the globe to further their endeavours and dreams.

Now that I finished his book, I moved onto Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis Gertsner, the ex-CEO of IBM. I'm not very far but this one came recommended by some colleagues at work. I'll post up a review after I finish this one....but so far it's pretty interesting.

Archiving Like Crazy

Archive.org

From reading that article and playing around with archive.org, it's really fascinating to see the progression of sites across the internet. It would seem that a few common things are happening across web sites in general:

Use of Search throughout websites
User Interfaces have improved dramatically
Transactions are easier, smoother - eg. one-click is pervasive on most sites
Use of flash, movies, etc. has grown as broadband/wifi use is more prevalent

While it is scary that someone has the ability to check your websites history and could potentially use that information against you, it can also aid you in the development of new features and minimizing mistakes from the past.

Testing, Testing, 123....

Testing to see if this works......hooray for social networking!!