Week 4- Clear Strategy and Technology

Welcome to my Week 4 Blog! This week we focused on Strategy and Technology in different types of organizations. I had a clear understanding of all of this material and really enjoyed this weeks lectures. The concept that I have the strongest grasp on is the "Value Chain". I have seen this concept in other classes, but the technological twist that this week covered made it a lot more interesting to me. After watching the interviews with several different employers from different sectors of the workforce I realized that without technology, value chains would be almost impossible to function. Technology allows each function in the value chain to easily communicate and integrate.

This chart from Steven Black shows how different value chains have to work together to create a valuable product or company.

One very interesting section of this week was learning about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs working together. This documentary from BBC goes through different factors between Microsoft and Apple. I feel like this friendship that turned into competition has really revolutionized not only computer technology, but tablets, phones, and other devices. In my eyes, competition on this level is what drives innovation in not only technology, but all things in the world.

The sections from this week that seemed to really hit home the most was "Interviews from the Field". This video really put all the things we are learning about technology into real life situations. If you take a minute to sit back and think about how much technology we use everyday, not only at work but in our daily lives, it is amazing. How often can you go through a whole day without checking your Facebook, Twitter, or even check you email? It seems almost impossible to make it through a day without these different types of technology.

In conclusion, this week was very interesting and valuable to me. The implication of different types of technology to everyday life and work is very interesting to me. The way that our lives are encompassed around our smart phones, computers, and other devices would have been unimaginable 50 years ago. Thank you for reading!