HOW TO SET UP AN INTRANET

By MASSAWE ARKADI

Any business, regardless of its size, can benefit from creating a simple company intranet to store important information and documents.

ü  Planning an intranet
There are many important questions to consider when planning an intranet, including:
what size should it be
what functionality should it have
how much will it cost

ü  who will be using the intranet – eg all staff or specific teams or departments

ü  what will you use it for – eg file storage, collaborative working, bulletin board, etc
what type of documents or databases will it feature.

ü  what content will it hold and who will create, publish and manage it.

ü  Look at your requirements carefully to make sure your investment is worthwhile. It might help to speak to your staff and see which features they would find most useful in an intranet.

Technical considerations for intranets

ü  Once you define the functionality you want, look at the technical aspects of developing an intranet. Think about things like:

ü  how will it look and what templates will need to be devised.

ü  what content management system will you use.

ü  what other applications it needs to support.

ü  what security precautions need to be in place.

how much bandwidth you will need
The biggest consideration will be whether to create and host your intranet in-house or go with an alternative solution, such as cloud hosting, external hosting, or 'pay as you go' and commissioning solutions.

BENEFITS OF INTRANET

If implemented successfully, an intranet can bring many benefits to your business. Some of the main advantages of an intranet are:

Better internal communications - intranets can act as communication hubs for staff. Corporate information such as memos, staff news and announcements can be stored centrally and accessed at any time.

Sharing of resources and best practice - a virtual workspace and community can be created to facilitate information storing, sharing and collaborative working. An intranet can also act as a training platform when providing online training content to staff.

Improved customer service - better access to accurate and consistent information by your staff can lead to enhanced levels of customer service.

Business efficiency and intranets
Your business' efficiency can be improved by using your intranet for:

publishing - delivering information and business news as directories and web documents.

document management - viewing, printing and working collaboratively on office documents such as spreadsheets or databases.

training - accessing and delivering various types of e-learning to the user's desktop.

workflow - automating a range of administrative processes, including dealing with holiday requests, staff performance reviews and appraisals, meeting room and equipment booking, etc.

front-end to corporate systems - providing a common interface to corporate databases and business information systems.

WHY COMPUTER IS IMPORTANT

By Bihongoye Erica (BAPRM 42535)

The advantages of computers are quite clear.  With computers, you can ask this question and I can answer it.  That helps both of us.  With computers and the internet, businesses can sell their products to people far from where they are.  Computers can be used to help create and test new products.

The advantages of computers are many.  One advantage is their time saving nature.  It is much quicker to type a letter than to write one with a pen.  The connection to the internet is of great use.  The ability to research something or ask questions in real time is amazing.  The amount of data that can be stored, manipulated, and retrieved is phenomenal.  Using computers save natural resources by limiting our need of paper and pencils.

Advantages of computers:                                                

• Increases speed of computing and processing information in any other way.
• People can use sophisticated statistical and mathematical tools for decision making and further purposes without learning in details the algorithms used for computing. This way people can use much more sophisticated analytical tools that would have been possible with only manual information processing.
• Computers can store large volumes of information without occupying too much space, as is in the case of information stored in form of books and paper documents.
• Computer processing eliminates the human errors of computing and information processing.
• Information once entered in computer system can be easily accessed by the same person or other persons at different times for different persons. This reduces the work load of capturing same information multiple times for different purposes. It also makes it possible for different person to work with same information, avoiding the possibility of different persons using different versions of the same information.
• The work of entering and editing information is made mush more easy and simple by software that offers many powerful user friendly features for performing these tasks.
• Computer now offer sophisticated and powerful software for representing information in rich formats with visual and video facilities.
• Computers combined with communication technology offer very fast speed and rich communication facility at low cost.
• Computers, with all these features are now used for automating all kinds of equipments and processes.

Disadvantage of Computers

• The cost of computer and associated equipments is falling steadily. Still these equipments are and continue to be much more costly as compared to manual processing equipments like pen and pencil. Also technological complexity of this equipment makes it more difficult to learn and maintain these equipments as compared to equipments of manual information processing.
• Use of computers require additional infrastructure, such as power supply and software back up. This increases the chances of problems due to failure of infrastructure. For example, a computer will not work where there is no electric power supply. Even a laptop with a battery will work without power supply only for a limited period.
• Failures of computer system can be more serious and difficult to correct. For example, one scratch on a hard disk can make the complete data on the disk inaccessible. In comparison, manual system faults have comparatively limited impact. One page torn from a cabinet full of documents has no impact on other documents.
• A computer generally reduces the errors of processing. However if there is an error in input data, it can result in major blunders in the processing which the computer system is unable to detect. In manual systems the chances of such blunders passing undetected and corrected is much less.

HOW TO SET UP AN INTRANET

By MASSAWE ARKADI

Any business, regardless of its size, can benefit from creating a simple company intranet to store important information and documents.

ü  Planning an intranet
There are many important questions to consider when planning an intranet, including:
what size should it be
what functionality should it have
how much will it cost

ü  who will be using the intranet – eg all staff or specific teams or departments

ü  what will you use it for – eg file storage, collaborative working, bulletin board, etc
what type of documents or databases will it feature.

ü  what content will it hold and who will create, publish and manage it.

ü  Look at your requirements carefully to make sure your investment is worthwhile. It might help to speak to your staff and see which features they would find most useful in an intranet.

Technical considerations for intranets

ü  Once you define the functionality you want, look at the technical aspects of developing an intranet. Think about things like:

ü  how will it look and what templates will need to be devised.

ü  what content management system will you use.

ü  what other applications it needs to support.

ü  what security precautions need to be in place.

how much bandwidth you will need
The biggest consideration will be whether to create and host your intranet in-house or go with an alternative solution, such as cloud hosting, external hosting, or 'pay as you go' and commissioning solutions.

BENEFITS OF INTRANET

If implemented successfully, an intranet can bring many benefits to your business. Some of the main advantages of an intranet are:

Better internal communications - intranets can act as communication hubs for staff. Corporate information such as memos, staff news and announcements can be stored centrally and accessed at any time.

Sharing of resources and best practice - a virtual workspace and community can be created to facilitate information storing, sharing and collaborative working. An intranet can also act as a training platform when providing online training content to staff.

Improved customer service - better access to accurate and consistent information by your staff can lead to enhanced levels of customer service.

Business efficiency and intranets
Your business' efficiency can be improved by using your intranet for:

publishing - delivering information and business news as directories and web documents.

document management - viewing, printing and working collaboratively on office documents such as spreadsheets or databases.

training - accessing and delivering various types of e-learning to the user's desktop.

workflow - automating a range of administrative processes, including dealing with holiday requests, staff performance reviews and appraisals, meeting room and equipment booking, etc.

front-end to corporate systems - providing a common interface to corporate databases and business information systems.

Reasons Why You Should Start Advertising Online

By ASSENGA VERA

 Ryan Crow (2009) online advertising is a form of marketing which uses the Internet to deliver promotional messages in digital formats. It includes e-mail marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, display advertising and mobile advertising.

The following are some reasons why online marketing in the form of digital advertising:

1.      Instant information: Online ads provide you a wide variety of advantages. With digital advertisements you get instant information on what ads are generating clicks, who is clicking your adverts and where they saw your ads. All of these are crucial bits of information for your business and you can’t get them from print ads. .

2.      Advertise to your preferred client: With online ads you can confirm that your message reaches your desired clients. Online ads reduce the chances of advertising to the wrong group of people, thus wasting your budget and time. .

3.      Demonstrate your creative side: Online advertising platforms allow you to be creative. You can showcase your own ads to your potential clients. If you want, you can hire professional designers to create flash banners or animated ads. These ads can be easily modified and tailored according to your marketing strategies.

4.      Increase your brand recognition: One of the advantages of digital marketing is the ability to increase brand recognition in a short time. You can take advantage of the constant user presence on the Web and quickly get your brand noticed.

5.      Changes are easy and quick: Unlike print ads you can make quick and easy changes to your online adverts. If any of your ads are misplaced or misinterpreted by a group of clients you can make quick changes and avoid unnecessary hustle.

6.      Affordability: Compared to TV or print ads, online ads are still relatively low-cost. Plus, online advertising tools give you the ability to lower your budget or even stop your campaign within a few seconds. Print or TV operates on contract basis, and when you are in a contract, it’s not easy to end it suddenly. You are spending less with online ads and have the flexibility to reduce costs even further instantly.

7.      Image of your brand: Internet adverts demonstrate your clients that you are a legitimate company and encourage them to take you seriously. Even if they never visited your website, a prominent domain name on the internet and continuous advertising campaigns proves your commitment towards your company and offerings. 

8.      Access: Television is losing audience because of excess commercials; people can watch their favorite shows online at a much lower cost or even free. Online advertising allows you to access those customers. Digital magazines are also gaining readers and you can advertise in them.

9.      Flexibility: Online advertising offers you more flexibility; you can reach various devices such as Smartphone’s, tablet computers and laptops. Promote one ad and you can reach all online users on Windows, Android and Apple devices. This wide variety of options means reaching more clients with less effort.

10.  Social media: People are naturally social and this is especially noticed when they are online. You can place targeted ads on social media such as Facebook and Twitter and get a massive amount of hits within a few minutes, which is not possible in the print media.

11.  Interactivity: Internet advertising gives you the immense.

 opportunity to interact with your customers and get direct feedback instantly. This is a far better situation than print ads.

When compared to traditional advertising strategies such as print media and outdoor, chances are that online advertising is an efficient alternative for your next marketing campaign

FUNCTIONS OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION MANAGER

BY HUGHO DEOGRATIUS

Corporate communications departments play a key role in how investors, employees and the general public perceive a company. They often report directly to a company’s chief executive officer and serve as advisers in managing a company’s reputation. They help leaders prepare for media interviews, develop messages to deliver to investors and employees and suggest new initiatives to keep companies on the cutting edge of communication with their stakeholders.

Media relations

This may be the function for which corporate communication managers are best known. Media relations work includes writing and distributing news releases and responding to media inquiries. Corporate communicators oversee all planning for news conferences, including selecting the site for an event, arranging for banners and other graphics to be displayed at the event, preparing packets of information to distribute to the media and preparing executives to speak at news conferences. Media relations also involves arranging for spokespersons to appear on local television and radio programs. Corporate communicators monitor newspapers, television news broadcasts and other outlets to see what the media is saying about the company and to devise strategies to address misinformation.

Building mutual relations

Building relationships with customers and responding to inquiries from the public fall under the public relations function of corporate communications. Duties in this area include producing newsletters, brochures and other printed materials designed for the general public. Corporate communicators also manage a company’s website and social media presence, which includes monitoring what customers and clients are saying about the company on social networking websites and responding to inaccurate posts or requests for information. Communication professionals may respond directly to calls and emails from citizens and customers with questions about a company’s plans or activities. They arrange for speakers from the company to make presentations to local community groups and may facilitate group tours of a company’s operations.

Crisis management

When an event occurs that threatens public safety or a company’s reputation, corporate communicators function as advisers to CEOs and senior leaders in managing the crisis. Special training in the issues unique to crisis communication helps corporate communicators prepare for events such as chemical spills, violence in the workplace, an accidental death on the job, layoff announcements and allegations of company wrongdoing. They often work with staff throughout their organizations to develop crisis communication plans before disaster strikes. A crisis may require communications staff to work with attorneys, government regulators, political officials, emergency response personnel and communications staff from other companies when developing crisis messages.

Maintaining employees relation

In addition to conveying a company’s messages to external audiences, corporate communicators may also be called on to function as employee communications managers, which includes designing printed publications and writing emails to announce company news, benefits information and training opportunities. Corporate communicators may facilitate focus groups to learn what issues matter most to front-line employees. They advise senior leaders on how to improve relationships with their staff and gain support for their initiatives. The corporate communications staff may also manage a company’s Intranet and internal blogs.

By Mathias Anneth m

By Mathias Anneth m

Disadvantages of digital library

Digital library is a special library with a focused collection of digital objects that can include text, visual material, audio material, video material, stored as electronic media formats. Digital library can be accessed any time of a day by any number of individuals. Also all resources can be viewed at any time by multiple users. However, in digital library resources are available upon the demand and there is no limit to the storage space.

The computer viruses, lack of standardization for digitized information, quick degrading properties of digitized material, different display standard of digital product and its associated problem, health hazard nature of the radiation from monitor that makes digital library at times handicap.

Digital library is a social impact because it democratizes the dissemination of information because digital libraries are large, organized collection of information objects.

The following are the disadvantages of digital library;

1.     Copyright; digitization violates the copy right law as the thought content of one author can be freely transfer by other without his acknowledge so one difficulty to overcome for digital libraries is the way to distribute information.

2.     Speed of access; as more and more computer are connected to the internet its speed of access reasonably decreasing. Therefore, if new technology will not evolve to solve the problem then in near future internet will be full of error messages.

3.     Initial cost is high; the infrastructure cost of digital library that is the cost of hardware, software, leasing communication circuit is generally very high.

4.     Band width; digital library will need high band for transfer of multimedia resources but the band width is decreasing day by day due to its over utilization.

5.     Efficiency; with much larger volume of digital information, finding the right material for a specific task becomes increasingly difficult.

6.     Environment; digital library cannot reproduce the environment of a traditional library. Many people also find reading printed material to be easier than reading material on a computer screen.

7.     Preservation; due to technological development a digital library can rapidly become out-of-date and its data may become inaccessible.

Generally, digital library cannot reproduce the same environment as traditional library does. Digital library takes away the personal contact between the user and the librarian as well as the feel of being in a library setting. However, individuals have hard time navigating online resources and reading them because people like the feel of a book in their hands and they find it easier on their eyes to read from a paper book rather than a computer screen.

creative Industry and Innovation

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION

BY HUGHO DEOGRATIUS

The Creative Industries are regarded as one of the most promising fields of economic activity in highly developed economies, having a great potential to contribute to wealth and job creation. Their activities rest upon individual creativity, skill and talent, i.e. factors of production for which high-income countries have a comparative advantage. In contrast to most other industries, their main output is intellectual property rather than material goods or immediately consumed services. Demand for such immaterial output, which is often tailored to the specific requirements and preferences of individual users, is likely to increase with growing per-capita income. Being a cross-sectional industry which serves a large number of other sectors as well as public organizations and consumers, the creative industries profit from a diversified mix of customers and may stimulate growth in a variety of other sectors by providing creative inputs.

Besides the contribution to growth and employment, another key interest in research and policy making is the role of the Creative Industries for an economy’s innovation performance.

We assume that this role is twofold. On the one hand, the Creative Industries may develop and introduce innovations as part of their business activities, thus directly contributing to an economy’s innovative output. Such innovations include new products and services offered to their customers (product innovation) as well as new technologies, procedures and routines within their business that raise efficiency or quality of their output (process innovation). An example for product innovation may be a new marketing approach offered by an advertising company which has not been used by this company before. On the other hand, the Creative Industries support innovation in other industries through creative inputs. These inputs can either be downstream, i.e. creativity produced in the Creative Industries is used by customers in their innovative efforts, or upstream, i.e. the Creative Industries demand innovative inputs from their suppliers (e.g. technology producers).

Creative inputs need not necessarily coincide with the Creative Industries’ own product innovations but may also relate to standard (i.e. non-innovative) activities of creative enterprises.