ICS 691 News, 1(2)

[Philip Johnson <johnson@hawaii.edu>]

ICS 691 News, Week 1, Issue 2

In this issue, I provide responses to various "letters to the editor"
:-)

* Clarification of topic bids
* Partner requests
* VCommerce document locations
* Posting your online resume
* ASP hardcopy resources
* Location of Pizza Portal business plan
* Evaluating the Pizza Portal plan with Wayne Brown site
* Opening the lecture slides with Powerpoint
* What to call the professor

-----------------------------------------

A somewhat bewildered student writes:

> 1) I'm sorry but what are the topic bids that u want
> us to send to u? I'm a little bit lost on this. Is it
> about business ideas, about the topics that we want
> you or other RPs to discuss on the class, or the topic
> that we are going to discuss on the class?

I want you to send bids on the three topics you would be interested
in presenting to the class.  If you go to the ICS 691 home page
(http://csdl.ics.hawaii.edu/~johnson/691s00/), then click on
"schedule and assignments", you will find the schedule page.  On this
page, there are about a dozen topics where the "speaker" is listed as
"Group".  These are the topics I will be assigned to small groups of
students.  You should indicate your preferences in an email to me.
Also, if you have an idea for a topic, please send that to me as
well. 
 
> 2) I actually have an Industrial Engineering and
> Business bakcground and I would like, as much as
> possible, to be paired up with someone who has a
> computer, programming, or web designing background. I
> think it will be a complementary pair if this is done.

Thank you. I'll take that into account. (Several others have emailed
with similar requests. Don't worry if I didn't respond to you, I am
saving these requests.)

> 3) This might sound very stupid to you but what site
> can I find the Vcommerce docs (Vol. 1&@)? Also, how
> can I post my resume on-line?

No, these are not stupid questions.  

If you go to the ICS 691 home page, then click on "Resources", you'll
find a page which will accumulate all of the online resources for
this class.  There is a section called "VCommerce", with links to the
VCommerce documents.  Note that in addition to the PDF versions of
volume 1 and volume 2, I have added links to the original Word
document for volume 2 (the pizza portal business plan), and the
original Excel document containing the revenue projections and income
statement.  You are  free to download that word and excel documents
and use the formatting and so forth in your own business plan.  

Second, many of you already have access to a web server, such as the
one on www2.hawaii.edu, and know how to use it to post web pages.
These folks should just send me the URL to their resume.  However,
some of you may not have current access to a web server.  If you do
not have access at this moment, I can offer the 691 web server to
post your resume for a week or two.  To do this, send me your resume
as an attached word, html, or PDF file.  (If you send me it as a word
document, please MAKE SURE you have current virus detection software
installed with recent updates and run it over the file as a matter of
courtesy and common sense.  I have already had one ICS student and
one business school faculty member send me word documents containing
the Melissa virus during the past couple of months.  HTML and PDF are
not susceptible to this problem.) 

I want to caution you that I can not serve as your personal
webmaster/sys admin for the entire semester.  If you do not have
access to a web server, such as www2.hawaii.edu, then you need to
obtain access as soon as possible.  (Access comes automatically with
your uhunix ID, which should be reason enough to get one, and which
all enrolled members of the class are entitled to.)  Furthermore, if
you do not understand the basics of posting a page to a webserver,
then you need to learn that as soon as possible.  See
http://www.hawaii.edu/infotech/ for links to various helpful
resources. You should also get a book from the library or bookstore
on basics of web pages.  EVERYONE will need facility with elementary
web page posting for this semester. 

> 4) How can I access the list of resources for any good
> ASP book? Do u have anything in particular that u can
> suggest especially to people who have ZERO background
> in ASP? Is there an "ASP for Dummy" book available?

The "Resources" section of the 691 web site now has a listing of the
recommended ASP books.  (They were also present in the lecture
materials, BTW.) 

I HIGHLY recommend that you go to a big box bookstore (Borders,
Barnes and Nobles, etc.) and spend an hour in the ASP section before
making your final decision, however.  You may decide to get more than
one book if your background is really minimal.  
 
> 5) Where can I go to access the Pizza Portal Business
> Plan?

As you hopefully might guess by now, check the Resources section.  

Note that I will continue to make a page for each week's lecture
containing pointers to the information and resources specific to that
week (go to the schedule page, and click on the "1/14" link for an
example.)  But I will also try to keep the cumulative resources page
so that you don't have to click through all the individual weeks if
you are trying to find something. 

> 6) I visited the venturecapital site. Are we supposed
> to evaluate PIzza Portal's BP against the 14 points in
> general? 

Yes!

> I tried to go into what particular category
> PIzza POrtal migth fall into but the best category in
> my opinion is the "Small Business". I this OK! Do you
> have any suggetsions?

Actually, there are 14 "classic venture prototypes" listed, but
"Small Business" is not one of them.  So, this is not the right
category.  (Note: there is not necessarily a "correct" answer for
which category Pizza Portal falls into.  It probably contains a
mixture of two or more, and different people may come up with
different answers. It is the quality of your argument that counts
more than the actual answer at this point. 

> I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause
> you.

No worries, mate.  I expect that this "startup" phase of the class
will be a little bewildering for many of you, and I don't mind going
over things a couple of times. 


On an unrelated topic, another student writes:
  
> My laptop can't open your lecture slides. I use the PowerPoint97.
> Could you let me know what I can do?  

Yes. Don't use powerpoint, because the slides are in PDF format.  Use
Adobe Acrobat reader (see http://www.adobe.com/). 

Last, but not least, yet another student emailed me recently to ask
what he should call me: "Philip"?  "Phil"?   "Professor Johnson"?
"Dr. Johnson"?  My answer is that you should feel free to call me
whatever you feel most comfortable with.  (With one minor exception:
on an anonymous student evaluation form from last semester, a student
called me a "long haired hippie bastard".  I guess that is one
appellation I could do without :-).   However, all of the graduate
and undergraduate students I work with call me "Philip", and that is
the way I personally prefer to be addressed. 

Cheers,
Philip