The law and rules are the most difficult part of the wide web. A great number of big enterprises are trying to figure out how to protect their products from spreading in Internet. And it seems a bit like a fight with windmills. The opportunities the digital world is offering, are greater than the monitoring.
How can companies pretect themselves from massive copying? It seems, that instead of enforcing the rules that are not followed, it is easier to go with the flow and be innovative somehow. I am not sure if the (copying) restrictions are justified anymore, because it is so easy to get the products in easier way without paying for them. And I'm quite sure that many people doesn't even understand at all that they are doing soething wrong. Therefore - a company should have some new way of protecting themselves at the very beginning.
Friday, December 18, 2009
E&L: week11: The Uneasy Alliance: Free Software vs Open Source
For me, the difference between free software and open-source software is the same as described in the wiki introduction: same idea, different ways. I understand it as As Richard Stallman puts it: 'Open source is a development methodology, free software is a social movement.'
Review: Comments and ethics
As my coursemates have covered many interesting themes, I decided to choose the subject that intersests me most. This is actually 'Social Media, Viral Marketing and Crowdsourcing' (our team's subject) but it combines good with 'Social data for fun: ethic and privacy concerns on Facebook apps', 'Legal and Ethical problems with clips on YouTube' and 'Comments and ethics'. As the last is also connected with my every day job, I'll focus on that.
As there were only two people in the group, the amount of text is a bit smaller. But this way there was nothing supefluos and all I found was relevant and interesting. I'm definately coming back to the reference list/article collection.
Commenting in internet has lately become a big topic. Though the most known court-case about commenting - Delfi vs Leedo - started already in 2006, it had a progress during this year. The problem is: who is responsible for content of (anonymous) comments. Is it the commentator or the site that allows the comments? From this year Delfi has hired few moderators whose job is everything else but easy. Though it might seem like a easy one. The line between acceptable comment and not acceptable comment is thin. Besides that, people can be really agressive towards them when they have removed some (unwanted) comment.
This autumn 4 Estonian media companies (Eesti Ekspress, Delfi, Maaleht, EPL) came up with a campaigne "Ära sigatse" with slogan: 'Don't throw thoughtless comments - there is a person on the other side of screen'. Time will show, if this project justifies itself. Let's hope it does, because even now it can be said that the amount of "bad" comments is decreased. One interesting fact, though: comparing the comments to daily news articles and entertainment news articles, there's a concrete difference, as daynews get more sensible comments than the tabloids where the amount of thoughtless comments is bigger.
Both themes - the campaigne and courte case - are (slightly) covered in the groupwork. But what could have been done different/better? I didn't see any conclusion and disbutation on subject 'what could be done to improve the situation?' For example, I would have expected some discussion about anonymous and non-anonymous comments and a little bit more reasoned structure.
Nevertheless, the theme is interesting and the work got me again thinking of the ethical part of the comments.
As there were only two people in the group, the amount of text is a bit smaller. But this way there was nothing supefluos and all I found was relevant and interesting. I'm definately coming back to the reference list/article collection.
Commenting in internet has lately become a big topic. Though the most known court-case about commenting - Delfi vs Leedo - started already in 2006, it had a progress during this year. The problem is: who is responsible for content of (anonymous) comments. Is it the commentator or the site that allows the comments? From this year Delfi has hired few moderators whose job is everything else but easy. Though it might seem like a easy one. The line between acceptable comment and not acceptable comment is thin. Besides that, people can be really agressive towards them when they have removed some (unwanted) comment.
This autumn 4 Estonian media companies (Eesti Ekspress, Delfi, Maaleht, EPL) came up with a campaigne "Ära sigatse" with slogan: 'Don't throw thoughtless comments - there is a person on the other side of screen'. Time will show, if this project justifies itself. Let's hope it does, because even now it can be said that the amount of "bad" comments is decreased. One interesting fact, though: comparing the comments to daily news articles and entertainment news articles, there's a concrete difference, as daynews get more sensible comments than the tabloids where the amount of thoughtless comments is bigger.
Both themes - the campaigne and courte case - are (slightly) covered in the groupwork. But what could have been done different/better? I didn't see any conclusion and disbutation on subject 'what could be done to improve the situation?' For example, I would have expected some discussion about anonymous and non-anonymous comments and a little bit more reasoned structure.
Nevertheless, the theme is interesting and the work got me again thinking of the ethical part of the comments.
E&L: week7: The Author vs the Information Society
Brian Martin discusses in the 3rd chapter of his book Ínformation Liberation' the problems with Intellectual Property. According to Martin, challenging intellectual property must involve the development of methods to support creative individuals.
His strategies for improving: Change thinking; Expose the costs; Reproduce protected work; Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property; Promote non-owned information; Develop principles for crediting intellectual work.
I agree that the way of thinking has much power and influence to everything - including framing are thoughts in legislation.
Exposing the costs is in the interest of reducing the legitimacy of the world intellectual property system.
Reproduce protected work - I think this is the hardest part. Ofcourse it is not fair to reproduce smb's work freely but it would be really difficult to set up a penalty-system. Martin compares illegal copying with theft. There are so much information around us, so it is quite hard to "stay clean". Therefore I like Martin's idea to hold as much information as possible free by sharing it wisely.
I definately agree to the strategy 'Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property'. Being open-minded in whatever field helps to understand the rules better and to stick to them.
His strategies for improving: Change thinking; Expose the costs; Reproduce protected work; Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property; Promote non-owned information; Develop principles for crediting intellectual work.
I agree that the way of thinking has much power and influence to everything - including framing are thoughts in legislation.
Exposing the costs is in the interest of reducing the legitimacy of the world intellectual property system.
Reproduce protected work - I think this is the hardest part. Ofcourse it is not fair to reproduce smb's work freely but it would be really difficult to set up a penalty-system. Martin compares illegal copying with theft. There are so much information around us, so it is quite hard to "stay clean". Therefore I like Martin's idea to hold as much information as possible free by sharing it wisely.
I definately agree to the strategy 'Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property'. Being open-minded in whatever field helps to understand the rules better and to stick to them.
E&L: week5: Different People, Digital World
This is the place where we can say that Internet has made life better. At least for minority groups. In Internet everybody is equal and the "side-effects" cant influence the person to talk/collaborate to. Also, people with disabilities have equal chance in Internet to come with some good idea as every other.
Unfortunately, I can't come with some bright example of minority group could use the Internet to reduce prejudice an alienation.
Unfortunately, I can't come with some bright example of minority group could use the Internet to reduce prejudice an alienation.
E&L: week6: Social Engineering in Social Networks
Social engineers on internet field know how to take advantgae of people's weakness and natural state of mind. It is very easy to manipulate with people, because there is not so much paranoia that could prevent the frauds.
Though I find more interesting the cases of social engineering without technology, the first frauds that come in to my mind are manipulations that are connected with technology. It could be done very easilly. "Social engineer" just needs to know his/her victim (it is enough to know at least the age). The scheme is similar to thiefs. For "successful" criminal action they get to know the backround. Same thing is with social engineering. For example - a call for some elder lady who is being told that the caller is from the bank. He/she needs her bank account data to assure that also next retired pay will be transfered to the account.
How to avoid social engineering attempts? If people are familiar with some of these schemes they can be aware of the possibility of unpredictable frauds. A lot of conciosness can be gained through media.
Though I find more interesting the cases of social engineering without technology, the first frauds that come in to my mind are manipulations that are connected with technology. It could be done very easilly. "Social engineer" just needs to know his/her victim (it is enough to know at least the age). The scheme is similar to thiefs. For "successful" criminal action they get to know the backround. Same thing is with social engineering. For example - a call for some elder lady who is being told that the caller is from the bank. He/she needs her bank account data to assure that also next retired pay will be transfered to the account.
How to avoid social engineering attempts? If people are familiar with some of these schemes they can be aware of the possibility of unpredictable frauds. A lot of conciosness can be gained through media.
E&L: week6: From Hacktivism to Cyberwar
In August 2009 the fast-growing messaging service Twitter was attacked. Because of the attack the site was shut down for half the day.
"Twitter said later in its status blog that it was "defending against a denial-of-service attack," in which hackers command scores of computers to a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through." At the same time Facebook also experienced problems.
I remember the live feed afterwards, where many people were talking about the shut down and asking: what has happened? (Though it didnt last very long.)
"Twitter said later in its status blog that it was "defending against a denial-of-service attack," in which hackers command scores of computers to a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through." At the same time Facebook also experienced problems.
I remember the live feed afterwards, where many people were talking about the shut down and asking: what has happened? (Though it didnt last very long.)
E&L: week5: hacker ethic found in today's world
Hacker ethic found in today's world - I think it still is there, but not as much than before (when the sky was bluer and grass greener :). It is hard to predict what will happen in the future, because the amount of (online)information sharing has powerfully increased. Therefore I think the hacker ethic is rather decreasing. The more people dealing with hacktivism, the less the ethical rules are followed.
E&L: week5: The Hacker Ethic in a Networked World
For a start, I had no clue that hackers use among themselves slang for fun and social communication. Some of them were predictable, some not. I found more interesting the non-abbreviaton terms that are less technical. For example: dancing frog, angry fruit salad. Also drunk mouse syndrome that happens to everyone once in while. If the mouse cursor on the screen moves randomly, it can be corrected by replugging the mouse. I found out another recommended fix for optical mice: to rotate the mouse pad 90 degrees.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
E&L: week4: Digital Divide
According to EMOR's 2008. year's internet survey, the computer and internet usage of the inhabitants of Estonia and the existence of a computer and internet connection in households has raised to 806 000 people in age 6-74.
The gap between estonian urban and rural regions isn't big. Though, there are families that still dream about having computer in their household. According to the survey every 3rd family couldn't afford buying a computer in 2008. The survey also reveals that homecomputer is connected with internet in 316 000 families.
As most most of Estonia is covered with wireless internet connection, internet is available almost everywhere. Definetly the availibilty of internet connection in bigger cities is not equal to the situation in smaller cities, but if you need it, you definately find it quickly.
The gap between estonian urban and rural regions isn't big. Though, there are families that still dream about having computer in their household. According to the survey every 3rd family couldn't afford buying a computer in 2008. The survey also reveals that homecomputer is connected with internet in 316 000 families.
As most most of Estonia is covered with wireless internet connection, internet is available almost everywhere. Definetly the availibilty of internet connection in bigger cities is not equal to the situation in smaller cities, but if you need it, you definately find it quickly.
E&L: week3: Internet Frauds
The frauds take place in internet as they do in "real" life. Media writes often about people who have been deceived with the real estate transactions, travel packages and so on, there are many examples. It would be naive to believe that there are no scams in internet, because virtually they are even more easy to carry out.
Some scam examples from recent past:
Young boys sent an e-mail to Hansapank's clients, asking to renew their codecard's numbercombinations. The e-mail looked like an official request from the bank and there was some people who couldn't see the hazard behind the request. Fortunately the word of scam spread fast and the problem was solved quickly and the boys got caught.
Besides banking there are big problems in e-shopping era. I remember the big scam from last year's Beijing Olympic Games, when dozens of people ordered tickets from the website www.beijing-tickets2008.com (there were few more). Those people paid money, but, of course, didn't get any tickets.
About the scambaiting website ScamBusters.org ... I don't see there any ethical issue, actually there can be found many amusing things. But one thing I find a little ironic is that after few seconds an over-screen request appears to my face, asking to subscribe. Although the site wants to share knowledge how to prevent getting into scam scheme, they suddenly want a user to give them name and e-mail address - just after few second from opening their portal.
Some scam examples from recent past:
Young boys sent an e-mail to Hansapank's clients, asking to renew their codecard's numbercombinations. The e-mail looked like an official request from the bank and there was some people who couldn't see the hazard behind the request. Fortunately the word of scam spread fast and the problem was solved quickly and the boys got caught.
Besides banking there are big problems in e-shopping era. I remember the big scam from last year's Beijing Olympic Games, when dozens of people ordered tickets from the website www.beijing-tickets2008.com (there were few more). Those people paid money, but, of course, didn't get any tickets.
About the scambaiting website ScamBusters.org ... I don't see there any ethical issue, actually there can be found many amusing things. But one thing I find a little ironic is that after few seconds an over-screen request appears to my face, asking to subscribe. Although the site wants to share knowledge how to prevent getting into scam scheme, they suddenly want a user to give them name and e-mail address - just after few second from opening their portal.
E&L: week3: Inside Echelon
Echelon is over 50 years old international global surveillance system that preserves many secrets which can affect the global community one or the other way.
Reading Duncan Campbell's article about Echelon got me thinking of powerful infotechnological (surveillance) systems, because actually no form of communication can be kept secret. (Unless you don't write a letter to yourself and hold it in locker, but then again it is not communication with the other part but more like thinking to youself.) In other words - in virtual world there is no absolute privacy.
Echelon system has been improved in time, but its core has remained. The collected information should prevent bigger threats and dangers in world. Still there have been major disasters (WTC, etc), but at same time we don't know what kind of catastrophes have been prevented so far.
Reading Duncan Campbell's article about Echelon got me thinking of powerful infotechnological (surveillance) systems, because actually no form of communication can be kept secret. (Unless you don't write a letter to yourself and hold it in locker, but then again it is not communication with the other part but more like thinking to youself.) In other words - in virtual world there is no absolute privacy.
Echelon system has been improved in time, but its core has remained. The collected information should prevent bigger threats and dangers in world. Still there have been major disasters (WTC, etc), but at same time we don't know what kind of catastrophes have been prevented so far.
E&L: week2: Testing a blocking software
Though it is an interesting task to download and test one blocking software, I tend to hesitate a bit. I browsed different softwares on the web and found out that the software may come with few side-effects. Such as blocking unwanted stuff and changing browser's settings, which would take time and patience to reset :) Plus the technical problems that were mentioned in the lecture.
Though, as the task is intereseting, I try to find some other computer where these side-effects wouldn't do any trouble and try out some of the blocking softwares then.
Though, as the task is intereseting, I try to find some other computer where these side-effects wouldn't do any trouble and try out some of the blocking softwares then.
E&L: week2: Nonmarket production in my field
Thinking of the example of applicability of nonmarket strategies in my field ... The first solution that comes in my mind is blogging. Being half-time journalist I follow the blogs of interesting people I could write about and other people in my field to explore what they have done and what do they think generally.
But what motivates people to blog? Blogs are the best way to share peer information and knowledge and get the backfeed. Most of what these people write about in blog is somehow related to their work. And they'll get their salary doing their job.
But what motivates people to blog? Blogs are the best way to share peer information and knowledge and get the backfeed. Most of what these people write about in blog is somehow related to their work. And they'll get their salary doing their job.
E&L: week 1: Theobald's mind-quake and Handy's paradox
Mind-quake
First example that comes to my mind is media versus new media. For younger people the mix of old and new media isn't anything new. But for older people it makes quite big difference, because they consume only printmedia, TV and radio. They now that there is such thing as internet but most of them don't use it. I also believe that the term "new media" itself is new for the older generation.
Handy's paradox
Changes in work and employment
While new methods allow more flexible approaches, the work in internet-based company can be done where ever is internet connection. Is there a chance for flexible work time also, depends on the mode of the job.
But I agree that this paradox has its negative sides also. If a worker belongs in a team then presence and active communication is important - otherwise there can be distractively many misunderstandings. Yes, the new way of working gives a lot freedom but it also demands huge self discipline and responsibility.
I'd also like to point out the paradox of timeless time that allows to share the work globally.
First example that comes to my mind is media versus new media. For younger people the mix of old and new media isn't anything new. But for older people it makes quite big difference, because they consume only printmedia, TV and radio. They now that there is such thing as internet but most of them don't use it. I also believe that the term "new media" itself is new for the older generation.
Handy's paradox
Changes in work and employment
While new methods allow more flexible approaches, the work in internet-based company can be done where ever is internet connection. Is there a chance for flexible work time also, depends on the mode of the job.
But I agree that this paradox has its negative sides also. If a worker belongs in a team then presence and active communication is important - otherwise there can be distractively many misunderstandings. Yes, the new way of working gives a lot freedom but it also demands huge self discipline and responsibility.
I'd also like to point out the paradox of timeless time that allows to share the work globally.
E&L: week 1: Pekka Himanen's paper
"Challenges of the Global Information Society"
In Information Society paper Himanen concentrates more on the new way of doing things, than just to new technologies. He points out that there is currently three dynamic models in terms of technology and economy: Silicon Valley, Singapore and Finnish. Additionally he sees room for fourth scenario - the combination of the welfare state and the information society. He says that we should no longer focus on reacting to something that has already happened, but act beforehand. I would say easy to say, not so easy to do.
Theoretically I find his point right but the greater part of the world is dealing daily with the innovation problems, specially right now at the time of crisis. Increasing the production, the economy gets better. I find that compared to the beginning of 90s it is quite hard to invent the bicycle, but I also believe that this is the point where information society comes into the picture.
The topic of innovation is very actual in Estonia also. We have created the project "Year of the Innovation" and "Ajujaht" to find people that believe in their business ideas. It is hoped that people start to think in new way and be more creative.
I also found interesting Himanen talking about the work culture and atmosphere. I think this is the era where a lot can be done better. In our changing economy, people work more and
more and there is a need to give (re)look to the orgnizational part, how the work and the leisure time hours are combined, what could be done to improve the work culture and atmosphere.
In Information Society paper Himanen concentrates more on the new way of doing things, than just to new technologies. He points out that there is currently three dynamic models in terms of technology and economy: Silicon Valley, Singapore and Finnish. Additionally he sees room for fourth scenario - the combination of the welfare state and the information society. He says that we should no longer focus on reacting to something that has already happened, but act beforehand. I would say easy to say, not so easy to do.
Theoretically I find his point right but the greater part of the world is dealing daily with the innovation problems, specially right now at the time of crisis. Increasing the production, the economy gets better. I find that compared to the beginning of 90s it is quite hard to invent the bicycle, but I also believe that this is the point where information society comes into the picture.
The topic of innovation is very actual in Estonia also. We have created the project "Year of the Innovation" and "Ajujaht" to find people that believe in their business ideas. It is hoped that people start to think in new way and be more creative.
I also found interesting Himanen talking about the work culture and atmosphere. I think this is the era where a lot can be done better. In our changing economy, people work more and
more and there is a need to give (re)look to the orgnizational part, how the work and the leisure time hours are combined, what could be done to improve the work culture and atmosphere.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Digital Interactive Audio
Podcast for Nuno Correia's course is HERE
What did I do:
Weekend_trailer
- recorded the voice over and cleaned it (took out long breathings and breaks)
- normalized and compressed voice over
- put the track called "Weekend girls" on the upper row
- cut out the very beginning and used it from 4-6 tact: the part with no words
- added camera click effect (kaamera.wav)
- when I started to talk, I put the backround loudness quieter
- went back to the track, cut it and used effect explosion.wav to make the change-over smoother (fade out > effect(explosion) > fade in)
- then put the loudness back quieter and started with my voice again
- after that put the loudness louder
- ended the clip with fade out and camera click effect
----
Weekend_ introduction
Used the same features as in trailer
Normalized and compressed the recording
Changed the track (Papillon remix) and effects (flyby07.wav)
Played with sound intensity
Used fade in and fade out + effect in change-overs
What did I do:
Weekend_trailer
- recorded the voice over and cleaned it (took out long breathings and breaks)
- normalized and compressed voice over
- put the track called "Weekend girls" on the upper row
- cut out the very beginning and used it from 4-6 tact: the part with no words
- added camera click effect (kaamera.wav)
- when I started to talk, I put the backround loudness quieter
- went back to the track, cut it and used effect explosion.wav to make the change-over smoother (fade out > effect(explosion) > fade in)
- then put the loudness back quieter and started with my voice again
- after that put the loudness louder
- ended the clip with fade out and camera click effect
----
Weekend_ introduction
Used the same features as in trailer
Normalized and compressed the recording
Changed the track (Papillon remix) and effects (flyby07.wav)
Played with sound intensity
Used fade in and fade out + effect in change-overs
Sunday, March 1, 2009
DaimlerChrysler
DaimlerChrysler: Wunderkind or Problem Child?
In 1998 the international automobile industry changed forever - Daimler-Benz and Chrysler merged together. The new company was called DaimlerChrysler. There were two kinds of suppositions - the new union would be a strong leader or they fail because of the different historical backgrounds.
History of the Automobile Industry
Why the automobile industry has made the revolution of world markets? That is because the automobile gives people the freedom and mobility to do as they please. The article and the history can't give us the answer who was the person that invented the automobile. The roots of the automobile are from Europe, but the car first became a popular mode of transportation in the United States. It eas a big step of the US economy, because the invention made the states economy boom. The automobile industry was jolted by the two World Wars that the industry had survived. In 1900 Germany became one of the top three car-making countries in the world,next to US and France.
Chrysler
Walter Chrysler played a large role in the formation of Chrysler Corporation. In 1926, Chrysler became the fifth largest American automaker. Still, Chrysler’s history has not always been that bright - in late 1970s there was a downturn in the economy, an increase in gas prices, and in interest rates. The company survived the hard time thanks to one person - Lee Iacocca who had invested his entire life at Ford.
Daimler-Benz
Daimler Motor Company and Benz & Company decided to merge together in 1926, forming Daimler-Benz. The company has always been known for its great quality, quantity has never been an issue. But there is something that still haunts Daimler-Benz - the firm used slave labor in the early 1940s. The quotation from a book review written by Alfred Mierzejewski: “…Daimler-Benz used slave labor only to survive in the short-term. It could rid itself of these laborers easily after the war, and it could use them to produce military aircraft engines and other war related products while conserving its skilled German workforce, concentrated in its plants in western Germany, for the resumption of peacetime production.”
The merger
In 1998 Daimler-Benz and Chrysler merged to DaimlerChrysler. Entering the unification, the German automaker had a very profitable year, Chrysler was just the opposite. So, why these two automakers decided to unite? The merger gave Chrysler its initial entry into the European market and Daimler-Benz greater expansion into the United States. Also, Chrysler wanted the quality that Mercedes portrays and Daimler-Benz wanted the cost-reducing programs that Chrysler possesses. Daimler-Benz admitted the need for more suppliers in its development process to reduce costs. It seemed to be a perfect fit.
A Theoretical Perspective
England’s Mercer Management Consulting formulated nine factors in the failure of most fusions:
1. Too much attention is given to short-term issues, such as “sealing the deal,” to the detriment of long-term corporate identity.
2. Leadership issues are not properly recognized. Management structures are more important than a clash of management personalities.
3. Typically there is a failure to obtain the goodwill of a range of stakeholder groups common to both companies.
4. Dangers in seeking new brand names take place, resulting in the loss of brand equity.
5. Communications departments have difficulty because they are unable to unite until the merger is complete.
6. Dominant players pay little attention to cultural issues, therefore leaving others to fear losing their distinct corporate identity.
7. Recognition is not given to the conflict between individual and corporate goals, meaning it is hard for employees to focus if they are worried about the security of their positions.
8. Communications consultants are brought in too late in the process
9. Reputations can be damaged – organizations and/or key individuals.
They also give four main solutions to solve the merger problems:
1. Identify the key stakeholder groups and track their reactions throughout the entire merger process.
2. Build on the strengths of each company.
3. Install effective corporate communication by monitoring reactions and identifying potentially damaging situations.
4. Evaluate the financial benefits and drawbacks of the merger.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages:
- DaimlerChrysler executives didn't change brand names or logos in the automobiles it produces. - DaimlerChrysler sought the goodwill of a range of stakeholder groups. The stockholders of each individual company overwhelmingly approved the fusion. There was only one stakeholder in particular that was not content.
- The open culture gives Chrysler a creative spirit and very fast decision-making (inversely to Germany)
- Daimler-Benz’s primary asset is the quality, safety, and nameplate of Mercedes - Chrysler is identified with low development costs
- Daimler-Benz reaps the benefit of large cost savings as a result of the merger
- Chrysler has the Five Star Program
Disadvantages:
- DaimlerChrysler didn't inform all stakeholders accurately about the terms of the merger.
- DaimlerChrysler also ran into problems with corporate structure
- Dissonance arose with the variance in corporate and national cultures
- Chrysler executives receive larger salaries and bonuses than do Daimler-Benz executives
- With Chrysler being “taken over” by Daimler-Benz, many Americans have a feeling of betrayal towards the company
Current Plans and Strategies
The company intends to have all brands share commodity parts, such as engine blocks and batteries. By doing this, quality will be maximized in all cars and engineering costs will be cut by using more effective and efficient parts. A minor strategy DaimlerChrysler employs inside the company is the Innovation Awards. These honors are designed to spur technological innovation. They reward the engineers for all the work they do.
Long term assessment
Unification affected several groups:
The future challenges which are facing the organization are large-scale.
In the estimation of the author of the article, there are three primary obstacles for DaimlerChrysler:
No-one know what would have happened today without the unification. Maybe Chrysler would have been bankrupted today. And what about Daimler-Benz? They also benefited from the deal as well by decreasing its high costs, increasing its production innovation, and improving its creative styling.
A move to uptown
Recent merger and old current building was forcing Daimler-Chrysler to look for the new workplace. “Our new workplace was key to meeting our organizational goals. We needed more than just nice offices – much more.” said John Mann, Director of Engineering and Regulatory Affairs.
They had very specific requirements:
* new building must support their current and future needs
* create a highly-effective workplace that improves operational efficiencies and productivity
* create a flexible technology infrastructure that can respond to changes inexpensively and quickly
* create a highly-flexible environment, using existing furniture standards, that can be easily and inexpensively reconfigured
* improve employee satisfaction by creating a comfortable and inspiring workplace
To achieve the objectives they:
* organized meetings with senior executives from all parts of the company
* used an integrated solution, that would address furniture requirements, as well as architectural and technological needs
* organized meetings every week to update each other and report outstanding issues - that helped them to address problems in the early phases and also deal with them.
* held a strong teamwork
After eight months work they could move into the new building and enjoy the job done - everybody where happy. And if workers are happy they put more energy into achieving the goals of the company.
Knowledge Management and e-Human Resource Management
DaimlerChrysler AG Plant Wörth decided to replace their current host-based human resource (HR) system with new web based solution. The new system which was internally called as e-People was offering to manage employees from the beginning of candidature till the withdrawal. Something what DaimlerChrysler was looking for - to get a consistent concept for their knowledge management.
Knowledge management is a collection of different techniques which are used to acquire knowledge, to organize knowledge and to make it transparent. One of these techniques is Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) respective Data Mining (one step of KDD process).
eHRM (e Human Resource Management) offers opportunity to automate administrative HR-work and to optmize value creating HR-activities. Three levels of development:
1. web-presence, HR - part of the eHRM solution are present
2. web-enabled HR - all parts of the eHRM solution are present and can be access online
3. web-energized HR - fully implemented, can be accessed online and used by employees
DaimlerChrysler eHRM level is two at the moment, but is to reach to level three.
The benefit for DaimlerChrysler with ePeople was the strong emphasis of self-service concept which was generally devided sections for executives and section for employees. All the employees could access their personal data (print attestations, salary data or see personal information) and executives can initiate workflows, have an overview of the structure of the skills, view administrative activities (who is ill, who changed department and etc.) or interact with other users.
Enhancements for eHRM with Knowledge Discovery in Databases (Data Mining)
Skill-extraction
A central module of ePeople is the functionality about the skill management. Employees or applicants can document their skills and executives can see those skills easily from the system. And according to the skills executives can decide the training measures or recruit new people.
When person is applying for the job one needs to fill in the socalled competency tree, which is categorized (IT-knowledges, Social knowledges and etc..). You can select among more than 500 skills by selecting the level of the skill (expert, average, ..). But problem is in the fact that this tree can be outdated very quickly. One possible solution is Text Mining, which enable users to extract and analyze information out of the documents. The challenge for Text Mining is to make the information understandable for machines. Every time user inserts the skill which is not in the database, then this skill will be added to the competency tree.
Recruitment decision support
It is possible to teach the system (classificator) to decide if candidate is suitable for the job or not. First classificator needs to be trained how to recognize if candidate is suitable. For this company needs the data about the candidates who have been accepted and candidates who were declined in the past. After one have the information the testing part can begin. If tests end up good, classificator can be used to make recruitment decisions, but not only as a standalone solutions because fo the error-rate classification approach.
Strategic personnel evolution
As workplace planning aims to have right people in the right place at the right time - all the time, it is good to have the overview of the current staff skills to get an impression which groups of similarly skilled people are presented in some speficic department. Thanks to the ePeople Skill management part company can make decisions about recruiting new employees, redeploy some people, organize trainings or see whose skills are not likely to meet the future needs.
Holistic view
Most of the proposed use cases make sense if they are combined with the processes that exists in the daily HR-work. And these cases have to be integrated to the system in a way that users acceptance would be as high as possible. A central component of the holistic view is the competency tree which is proposed to design the tree as an ontology for a more flexible use in the future. With an ontology we get a common understanding about the structure of the saved information (in addition we get interoperability, machine-readable data and reuse of domain knowledge that is saved in the tree.
A diploma thesis was planned for the third quarter of 2003 which dealed with the problem to transfer the competency tree into an ontology.
In 1998 the international automobile industry changed forever - Daimler-Benz and Chrysler merged together. The new company was called DaimlerChrysler. There were two kinds of suppositions - the new union would be a strong leader or they fail because of the different historical backgrounds.
History of the Automobile Industry
Why the automobile industry has made the revolution of world markets? That is because the automobile gives people the freedom and mobility to do as they please. The article and the history can't give us the answer who was the person that invented the automobile. The roots of the automobile are from Europe, but the car first became a popular mode of transportation in the United States. It eas a big step of the US economy, because the invention made the states economy boom. The automobile industry was jolted by the two World Wars that the industry had survived. In 1900 Germany became one of the top three car-making countries in the world,next to US and France.
Chrysler
Walter Chrysler played a large role in the formation of Chrysler Corporation. In 1926, Chrysler became the fifth largest American automaker. Still, Chrysler’s history has not always been that bright - in late 1970s there was a downturn in the economy, an increase in gas prices, and in interest rates. The company survived the hard time thanks to one person - Lee Iacocca who had invested his entire life at Ford.
Daimler-Benz
Daimler Motor Company and Benz & Company decided to merge together in 1926, forming Daimler-Benz. The company has always been known for its great quality, quantity has never been an issue. But there is something that still haunts Daimler-Benz - the firm used slave labor in the early 1940s. The quotation from a book review written by Alfred Mierzejewski: “…Daimler-Benz used slave labor only to survive in the short-term. It could rid itself of these laborers easily after the war, and it could use them to produce military aircraft engines and other war related products while conserving its skilled German workforce, concentrated in its plants in western Germany, for the resumption of peacetime production.”
The merger
In 1998 Daimler-Benz and Chrysler merged to DaimlerChrysler. Entering the unification, the German automaker had a very profitable year, Chrysler was just the opposite. So, why these two automakers decided to unite? The merger gave Chrysler its initial entry into the European market and Daimler-Benz greater expansion into the United States. Also, Chrysler wanted the quality that Mercedes portrays and Daimler-Benz wanted the cost-reducing programs that Chrysler possesses. Daimler-Benz admitted the need for more suppliers in its development process to reduce costs. It seemed to be a perfect fit.
A Theoretical Perspective
England’s Mercer Management Consulting formulated nine factors in the failure of most fusions:
1. Too much attention is given to short-term issues, such as “sealing the deal,” to the detriment of long-term corporate identity.
2. Leadership issues are not properly recognized. Management structures are more important than a clash of management personalities.
3. Typically there is a failure to obtain the goodwill of a range of stakeholder groups common to both companies.
4. Dangers in seeking new brand names take place, resulting in the loss of brand equity.
5. Communications departments have difficulty because they are unable to unite until the merger is complete.
6. Dominant players pay little attention to cultural issues, therefore leaving others to fear losing their distinct corporate identity.
7. Recognition is not given to the conflict between individual and corporate goals, meaning it is hard for employees to focus if they are worried about the security of their positions.
8. Communications consultants are brought in too late in the process
9. Reputations can be damaged – organizations and/or key individuals.
They also give four main solutions to solve the merger problems:
1. Identify the key stakeholder groups and track their reactions throughout the entire merger process.
2. Build on the strengths of each company.
3. Install effective corporate communication by monitoring reactions and identifying potentially damaging situations.
4. Evaluate the financial benefits and drawbacks of the merger.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages:
- DaimlerChrysler executives didn't change brand names or logos in the automobiles it produces. - DaimlerChrysler sought the goodwill of a range of stakeholder groups. The stockholders of each individual company overwhelmingly approved the fusion. There was only one stakeholder in particular that was not content.
- The open culture gives Chrysler a creative spirit and very fast decision-making (inversely to Germany)
- Daimler-Benz’s primary asset is the quality, safety, and nameplate of Mercedes - Chrysler is identified with low development costs
- Daimler-Benz reaps the benefit of large cost savings as a result of the merger
- Chrysler has the Five Star Program
Disadvantages:
- DaimlerChrysler didn't inform all stakeholders accurately about the terms of the merger.
- DaimlerChrysler also ran into problems with corporate structure
- Dissonance arose with the variance in corporate and national cultures
- Chrysler executives receive larger salaries and bonuses than do Daimler-Benz executives
- With Chrysler being “taken over” by Daimler-Benz, many Americans have a feeling of betrayal towards the company
Current Plans and Strategies
The company intends to have all brands share commodity parts, such as engine blocks and batteries. By doing this, quality will be maximized in all cars and engineering costs will be cut by using more effective and efficient parts. A minor strategy DaimlerChrysler employs inside the company is the Innovation Awards. These honors are designed to spur technological innovation. They reward the engineers for all the work they do.
Long term assessment
Unification affected several groups:
- especially it affected DaimlerChrysler and its stakeholders. One of the largest impacts was on DaimlerChrysler’s stock price. Stockholders were voting to turn in their shares for stock in the new company, DaimlerChrysler. While doing so Daimler-Benz shareholders obtained 1.005, while Chrysler stockholders only received 0.6235 shares for every one share they owned. Rates were different because of the value of each company after the analysis of assets. But merger wasn't only bad for stockholders - the unification allowed thousands of people to globalize themselves by taking part of foreign stock exchanges.
- Consumers where affected by the products. That they could get the best products Daimler-Benz and Chrysler must share each other’s best practices, which might bring about better products than ever.
- Suppliers benefit - Chrysler’s suppliers are able to enter a new supply chain, as Daimler-Benz’s close-knit family will now welcome the new vendors.
- Employees were affected in a different way - Chrysler employees and executives were left a bit shocked and in fear of a complete German takeover, so maybe some of them don't work as hard anymore.
The future challenges which are facing the organization are large-scale.
In the estimation of the author of the article, there are three primary obstacles for DaimlerChrysler:
- allowing Mercedes to share its premium parts with Chrysler, while maintaining brand differentiation to protect the quality-oriented name;
- changing the focus of advertising to reflect pride in the company, while decreasing the amount of discounting on cars;
- developing a competitive car to fit in the mass-market niche.
- Schroer changed the schema of DaimlerChrysler advertisements.
- DaimlerChrysler needs to decrease its dependence on discounting.
- DaimlerChrysler needs to heighten its attempts at uniting its own people.
No-one know what would have happened today without the unification. Maybe Chrysler would have been bankrupted today. And what about Daimler-Benz? They also benefited from the deal as well by decreasing its high costs, increasing its production innovation, and improving its creative styling.
A move to uptown
Recent merger and old current building was forcing Daimler-Chrysler to look for the new workplace. “Our new workplace was key to meeting our organizational goals. We needed more than just nice offices – much more.” said John Mann, Director of Engineering and Regulatory Affairs.
They had very specific requirements:
* new building must support their current and future needs
* create a highly-effective workplace that improves operational efficiencies and productivity
* create a flexible technology infrastructure that can respond to changes inexpensively and quickly
* create a highly-flexible environment, using existing furniture standards, that can be easily and inexpensively reconfigured
* improve employee satisfaction by creating a comfortable and inspiring workplace
To achieve the objectives they:
* organized meetings with senior executives from all parts of the company
* used an integrated solution, that would address furniture requirements, as well as architectural and technological needs
* organized meetings every week to update each other and report outstanding issues - that helped them to address problems in the early phases and also deal with them.
* held a strong teamwork
After eight months work they could move into the new building and enjoy the job done - everybody where happy. And if workers are happy they put more energy into achieving the goals of the company.
Knowledge Management and e-Human Resource Management
DaimlerChrysler AG Plant Wörth decided to replace their current host-based human resource (HR) system with new web based solution. The new system which was internally called as e-People was offering to manage employees from the beginning of candidature till the withdrawal. Something what DaimlerChrysler was looking for - to get a consistent concept for their knowledge management.
Knowledge management is a collection of different techniques which are used to acquire knowledge, to organize knowledge and to make it transparent. One of these techniques is Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) respective Data Mining (one step of KDD process).
eHRM (e Human Resource Management) offers opportunity to automate administrative HR-work and to optmize value creating HR-activities. Three levels of development:
1. web-presence, HR - part of the eHRM solution are present
2. web-enabled HR - all parts of the eHRM solution are present and can be access online
3. web-energized HR - fully implemented, can be accessed online and used by employees
DaimlerChrysler eHRM level is two at the moment, but is to reach to level three.
The benefit for DaimlerChrysler with ePeople was the strong emphasis of self-service concept which was generally devided sections for executives and section for employees. All the employees could access their personal data (print attestations, salary data or see personal information) and executives can initiate workflows, have an overview of the structure of the skills, view administrative activities (who is ill, who changed department and etc.) or interact with other users.
Enhancements for eHRM with Knowledge Discovery in Databases (Data Mining)
Skill-extraction
A central module of ePeople is the functionality about the skill management. Employees or applicants can document their skills and executives can see those skills easily from the system. And according to the skills executives can decide the training measures or recruit new people.
When person is applying for the job one needs to fill in the socalled competency tree, which is categorized (IT-knowledges, Social knowledges and etc..). You can select among more than 500 skills by selecting the level of the skill (expert, average, ..). But problem is in the fact that this tree can be outdated very quickly. One possible solution is Text Mining, which enable users to extract and analyze information out of the documents. The challenge for Text Mining is to make the information understandable for machines. Every time user inserts the skill which is not in the database, then this skill will be added to the competency tree.
Recruitment decision support
It is possible to teach the system (classificator) to decide if candidate is suitable for the job or not. First classificator needs to be trained how to recognize if candidate is suitable. For this company needs the data about the candidates who have been accepted and candidates who were declined in the past. After one have the information the testing part can begin. If tests end up good, classificator can be used to make recruitment decisions, but not only as a standalone solutions because fo the error-rate classification approach.
Strategic personnel evolution
As workplace planning aims to have right people in the right place at the right time - all the time, it is good to have the overview of the current staff skills to get an impression which groups of similarly skilled people are presented in some speficic department. Thanks to the ePeople Skill management part company can make decisions about recruiting new employees, redeploy some people, organize trainings or see whose skills are not likely to meet the future needs.
Holistic view
Most of the proposed use cases make sense if they are combined with the processes that exists in the daily HR-work. And these cases have to be integrated to the system in a way that users acceptance would be as high as possible. A central component of the holistic view is the competency tree which is proposed to design the tree as an ontology for a more flexible use in the future. With an ontology we get a common understanding about the structure of the saved information (in addition we get interoperability, machine-readable data and reuse of domain knowledge that is saved in the tree.
A diploma thesis was planned for the third quarter of 2003 which dealed with the problem to transfer the competency tree into an ontology.
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