Individual Assignment 10

During Marta Dalton's guest speaker event, I learned about the differences between business to business digital marketing and business to consumer digital marketing, social media, and job opportunities and the outlook for jobs in digital marketing. For a business to business (B2B) digital marketing the targets are the companies, whereas for a business to consumer(B2C) digital marketing the targets are consumers. The campaign complexity and campaign volume for a B2B is medium because the company usually has buyers who are long term clients who buy a lot more products than an individual consumer. Therefore, in a B2B digital market, the company grows a personal relationship with their buyers and does not put much money into marketing campaigns. Whereas in a B2C the campaign complexity and campaign volume is high because they need consumers to stay interested in their products so they will go buy them in stores. I also learned about how Marta Dalton's company uses social media, and how there is a purpose to each social media platform. She also discussed how they use google analytics to analyze the amount of people that are looking at their sites. Additionally, Dalton emphasized that social media includes posting, liking other individuals or companies, commenting on others posts, and maintain the site. My favorite part about Marta Dalton's presentation was when she talked about the digital market jobs and outlooks. She stated that digital marketing jobs are in demand from companies and that the growth predicted is about 9%. I also liked  how she related digital marketing to students who are not planning to graduate with a digital marketing degree, and that even if I do not have a degree in that particular field the ways that I can use digital marketing in my own job.

When I went on the MSA tour and listened to the guest speaker Karl Herleman I learned what MSA does and how they use information systems to help them help their customers grow. MSA is a small company that analyzes data to inform their customers the best way to grow their business. The customers can then use the data to make decisions. MSA has eight different areas that they are involved in including business analysis, gaming, information technology systems and solutions, media and MSA focus international, corporate enterprise application, information management solutions, life sciences, and metals and advanced manufacturing. MSA uses information systems to help them analyze the data. However, to use information systems the have to develop them. MSA develops information systems if their client wants analysis on a specific type of data or if someone has a good idea for a program that they can develop. When someone has an idea it goes through multiple stages of designing the information system and then developing the system. I thought that this tour was very interesting because I did not know MSA was involved in all of the things that they have been involved in such as determining when the best time and day it would be to air a TV show. 

During Ginger Ellis-Polozoff guest lecture I learned the basics of project management. A project is temporary and it produces something new. Therefore, project management is a framework for completing projects and managing workflow. The project is usually monitored by a project manager, which is the person responsible for leading the project from the beginning to the very end. A project manager is also in charge of finding the most efficient way to complete the project. The requirements of a project should be clear, measurable, feasible, verifiable, correct, and traceable. The deliverables of a project are what comes out of the project management process, and they can be traced back to the requirements. Stakeholders are individuals who can influence or are at least affected by the project. A project charter is during the initiating phase of the project management process, and it defines and outlines what is expected to come out of the project. The next phase is the planning step. During this step network diagrams are created, which is a graphic that shows relationships between groups, steps, and tasks that will impact the project. The other three steps are executing the project, monitoring and controlling the project, and closing the project. I really enjoyed learning about project management because I think that it is a great tool that I can use in my future career.

Personally, I have learned a lot from this course. I have learned things such as security; how to build a business process model; how to use access, excel, and tableau; and the basics of management information systems. This course has affected me both professionally and personally. Professionally, this course has taught me things I know I will use again in the future. It has also helped me finding contacts in the field that I eventually want to work in through interviewing professionals for the team assignment. Personally, I have become more interested in MIS and I found out that I am really good at it. I wanted to continue learning about MIS that I even added the MIS minor to my transcript. In the future, I plan to use the knowledge that I learned in excel and access because I know that I will be using those programs in my field. In the beginning of this course I took a survey and did not know a lot of the things on the survey, but on the post survey, I knew what everything was. To conclude, this course was challenging, but I think it is mandatory for people to take especially if they are going into the business field because this course teaches you essential skills that students can build on in the future.   

Individual Assignment 9

In this assignment, I learned how to analyze data given to me by using formulas and a pivot chart and table. The formulas I used for the data were the DAYS function, the Nested IF function, the VLOOKUP function, and the Concatenate function. I have never used any of these functions before, and I think that they are very important because they will help me in my future job to analyze data. Learning how to create a pivot chart and table is was also one of the most important things I learned in this assignment because it helped me to find answers quickly and organize the data that I wanted into a chart and a table. I also learned that using pivot tables and charts is an essential skill that I need and what my future employers will want me to do with excel because it is a way to analyze certain data quickly. 

This assignment is related to business intelligence because I needed to complete the three primary activities in the BI process (Kroenke, 2014). First, I had to acquire the data which was an excel file that I downloaded from Tableau Public. Next, I had to analyze the data by using formulas to find answers to questions such as using the DAYS function to see what the age of an NFL player would be today if all the data gave me was the player's birthdate. I also had to analyze the data by creating a Pivot Chart and Table in excel to show which state had the highest average of Fan points. For the third step, I published my results. I used Tableau Public to complete this step by using the player's birth place zip code and their position rank scores to create a map. Once I created the map I saved it and published it on the web. 

https://public.tableau.com/shared/FBDH2CDGF?:display_count=yes

An Excel skill that I did not learn about in this assignment is the COUNTIF function. I think that this function would be useful in the future because it analyzes data in a certain range and tells me how many cells meet my specified criteria. Since I eventually want to become a hospital administrator, this function can be useful in many ways such as finding out how many hospital rooms are on a certain floor or how many times a certain patient has been seen in the hospital that year. 

Works Cited

Kroenke, D. M. (2014). MIS Essentials (pp.230-236). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Individual Assignment 8

In this assignment, I used Excel and Tableau to create a visualization of the data we had in Excel. In Excel, I had to reorganize the 10 brands so that each brand would have a column for familiarity, regard, and relevance. In addition to the data that was provided to me, I had to create 10 additional columns for each brand. In the new columns that I created I had to use the Excel Sum function to find the total brand equity score. Once I did that for each brand, I had to import that file into Tableau Public. In Tableau, I created four visualizations of the data from Excel for the average familiarity, the average regard, the average relevance, and the aggregate brand equity for the 10 brands. For this assignment, I learned how to use Tableau to create a visualization for the data that I created in Excel. This assignment is an example of business intelligence because I needed to complete the three primary activities in the BI process (Kroenke, 2014). First, I had to acquire the data which was the Excel file. Next, I had to analyze the data by organizing the excel columns into the 10 brands and I had to create a new column to perform the Excel Sum function. For the third step, I had to publish my results. I used Tableau Public to complete this step by publishing it on the web.

Works Cited

Kroenke, D. M. (2014). MIS Essentials (pp.230-236). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Individual Assignment 7

“Digital analytics is the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your business and the competition to drive a continual improvement of the online experience that your customers and potential customers have which translates to your desired outcomes (both online and offline)” (Google Analytics, 2013a). Google analytics collects the data to help a business achieve its expectations in multiple ways. For a website, Google analytics uses a JavaScript code that Google analytics users place on every page of their website that they want to track. The JavaScript code collects data from the user when they access a specific page. It can collect data about what page the user is looking at on a businesses website, it can collect data from the user’s browser history, and it can collect data from the referring source that brought the user to the businesses website. When all of this data is collected it is sent to a Google analytics server in a “hit” or a package of data collected from the user when viewing a page on a businesses website. Data collection from Google analytics can be used in the management of social media for OrgABC’s sales and marketing division(s) by creating, improving, and maintaining relationships with the company and its customers. The sales and marketing division can see what customers are saying on their website about the company’s products through Google analytics. This gives the company a comprehensive report about what the customers like and dislike about their products, and will tell them if they should improve their products. The sales and marketing team can also use social media to promote their company. When they use Google analytics on social media websites, the sales and marketing team can track how much their social media prescience is and from the data, they can see if they need to improve to grow a better relationship with their customers. (Google Analytics, 2013 a-f & 2014)

Sentiment analysis is the detection of attitudes from a text such as a review for a product of OrgABC. The basic principles used in sentiment analysis are the holder, the target, the type of attitude, and the text containing the attitude. The person who is having the attitude is called the holder. The person or thing that the holder is having the attitude towards is the target. The type of attitude is the attitude that the holder uses towards the target. The actual text that the attitude is found in is the text containing the attitude. For the customer service division of OrgABC, they can use sentiment analysis when they read the reviews of the product to help customers if they are unhappy with the product or need help using it. When reading the reviews, the customer service division can notice phrases that suggest the sentiment (attitude) of the text and then they can combine the sentiment over all of the reviews they received for that product. If the aggregate sentiment over all of the reviews is negative, customer service knows that they have a problem and can inform the other divisions of the company that deals with making or purchasing the product. (OpenCourseOnline, 2012)  

Social network analysis shows the relationships between different entities and the connections between them. Networks are made up of nodes and edges. Social network analysis can predict future events for a product of OrgABC. Social network analysis can be very useful for the marketing and sales division of OrgABC because when analyzing the social network, they can see what people are talking about and what types of groups are forming based on what they are interested in. This is helpful for sales and marketing because they can target their advertising and products towards the people that they want to buy their merchandise. (Lee, 2013)

I have learned through completing this assignment that professionals can use Google analytics, sentiment analysis, and social network analysis to enhance an organization's social capital and presence. With Google analytics, companies can get data from the people that visit their website to get a better understanding of the products that the customers want by how many visits a certain product page has generated. Google analytics can also track the reviews customers leave about their products. Both of these services provided by Google analytics can enhance the relationship between customers and companies which would be an increase in social capital. A sentiment analysis can also increase social capital because a company can look at their reviews to see what their customers reactions are towards the product. If the customer is happy with their product and posts a good review the post may influence someone else to buy the product which would increase the number of relationships a company has with their customers. This would also increase the companies social capital. However, if customers are not happy with their products and they post negative reviews, the company can address what is wrong with their product or advertising and strengthen the relationship between the customers and the company. Finally, social network analysis is very valuable for social capital because when people are notified about a product from a company and are satisfied by it the customer shares it online as a review or just posts about the product on their social media sites. This can cause more people to talk about the product, which can lead to a company’s income and the number of their relationships to both increase. The end result would also cause an increase in social capital. (Kroenke, 2014)

 Works Cited

Google Analytics (2013a, October 1). Digital Analytics Fundamentals-Lesson 1.1 Course  Overview [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPZSSdkGQhM&list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3vIYrHjyVm_e&index=1

Google Analytics (2013b, October 7). Digital Analytics Fundamentals-Lesson 2.1 The importance of digital analytics [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbXNS3NjIfM&list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3vIYrHjyVm_e&index=2

Goggle Analytics (2014, May 14). Digital Analytics Fundamentals-Lesson 2.2 Core analysis          techniques [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi0w57kr_jY&list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3vIYrHjyVm_e&index=3

Goggle Analytics (2013c, October 7). Digital Analytics Fundamental-Lesson 2.3 Conversions and conversion attribution [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLJt5A-NeQI&index=4&list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3vIYrHjyVm_e

Google Analytics (2013d, October 7). Digital Analytics Fundamentals-Lesson 2.4 Creating a        measurement plan [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpDA3XaELqs&list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3vIYrHjyVm_e&index=5

Google Analytics (2013e, October 7). Digital Analytics Fundamentals-Lesson 3.1 How Google Analytics works [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyltEFyZ678&list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3vIYrHjyVm_e&index=6

Google Analytics (2013f, October 7). Digital Analytics Fundamentals-Lesson 3.2 Key metrics and dimensions defined [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW3gx4t4944&index=7&list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3vIYrHjyVm_e

Kroenke, D. M. (2014). MIS Essentials (pp.197-215). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Lee, D. (2013, March 7). Lecture 1.1-1A Why Social Network Analysis (1354) [Video file].            Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjOVhWfh6iI

OpenCourseOnline (2012, April 4). 7-1-What is Sentiment Analysis-Stanford NLP-Professor Dan Jurafsky & Chris Manning [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxPBv4Skj98




Individual Assignment 6

In this assignment, I imported the spreadsheets from Excel into Access. Our class did this to show how each of the spreadsheets relate to each other. In Access, there is a key or primary key in each spreadsheet. The keys make each table unique and separate from one another. In this project, the keys were the customer number, concrete type, order number, employee ID, dependent ID, and truck number. To understand how each spreadsheet relates to one another we created relationships among the tables. The three types of relationships are a one-to-one relationship, a one-to-many relationship, and a many-to-many relationship. In this project all of the relationships were one-to-many.

I like Access much better than Excel because it made it much easier to find relationships among multiple spreadsheets by using a query. In Excel, I would have to go through multiple spreadsheets to find answers to questions such as the specific type of concrete an order had or who the employee that an order was associated with was. In Access, I can create a query that looks through multiple spreadsheets to find the answer for me. However, in Excel to get my answers I would have to go from one spreadsheet to another to find my answers. This process is time-consuming and inefficient.

I also created a form by creating a combobox. This allows someone to easily enter new orders because the combobox is a drop-down list that has information such as the customer name or the concrete type. It makes the task easy for an employee to enter new orders because if a customer calls and he or she does not know their customer number or the concrete type the sales rep can look at the drop down menu and choose the customer name or concrete description to get the information they need to complete the order.   

A relational database can be very useful for my future career because it can make relationships among separate spreadsheets, and help me to find information quickly and efficiently. Since I want to eventually work in hospitals a relational database can be helpful to find information about patients and their records, employees, and companies that we do business with.

Individual Assignment 4

In an Excel spreadsheet, there are tasks that you need to do automatically and repeatedly with efficiency. You can do this by writing a macro in Excel. Businesses or non-profit organizations might need to use macros to save time and to be more effective when they need to change a name or an address in their large dataset spreadsheet. If they do not use macros they might miss a name or something that they needed to change. If they did miss something it could cause a problem in the future when the business or non-profit organization is looking at the spreadsheet. Computer software is all the programs and applications on your computer (Kroenke, 2014). Therefore, Excel is a type of software. People using Excel can write their own macros to personalize their spreadsheets to make it more productive. People write macros by using coding. They write a source code which is "a computer code as written by humans and that is understandable by humans" (Kroenke, 2014). Then the computer turns the source code into machine code that humans cannot understand to perform the functions that you want (Kroenke, 2014).

In this assignment exercise, I wrote a macro to find a name and to replace all of those found names to another name. Through this exercise, I learned that macros are a lot easier to write than I thought that they would be. I also learned that they are much more proficient in using, especially for the function we were using it for, instead of going through and changing each name separately. 

Works Cited

Kroenke, D. M. ( 2014). MIS Essentials (pp.86-99). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.