Come hear the Yahoo! VP for Advanced Development give a talk at U of Michigan

Bradley Horowitz, VP for Advanced Development at Yahoo! will be a Guest Speaker on campus next week Tuesday, November 27 from 4-5pm in the 1670 Computer Science Building on North Campus. He is being co-sponsored by SI and CSE and the topic is of clear SI interest "Innovation and Evolution - How Search, Social Media, and New Ideas can Shape the Next Web".

Organizations can ask university students for help

Regional organizations can now ask for FREE help from students in certain classes at both Michigan State University and the School of Information (SI) at University of Michigan. SI has been doing this at least since 1998, when I started, and now MSU announced a similar program. Details below:

Got tech, business challenges? MSU students want to help

Several teams of Michigan State University undergraduates and master's students are ready and waiting to help Michigan businesses and nonprofits solve some of their technology and advertising problems -- for free.

As part of their spring semester coursework in several communications and business classes, the students are required to work in cross- functional teams on real-world business problems. And, they just need a few more volunteer "clients."

Here are a few of the opportunities where local businesses and students can work together:

Management of an information technology project from start to finish -- Teams of three or four undergraduate and graduate students will serve as IT consultants to various mid-Michigan companies. Each student group will analyze the current situation of the business, determine the specifics of an IT project and implement a solution before April 25, 2008. For more details, contact Constantinos Coursaris, assistant professor of telecommunication, information studies and media, at coursari@msu.edu or (517) 353-3122.

Management of advertising and promotion projects -- Teams of four to six second-year master's level students will serve as advertising consultants to various mid-Michigan companies. The team will analyze the business position in the targeted market segment and will develop an advertising strategy based on the current needs of the business. Participating organizations will receive a written market analysis and recommendations of various advertising and promotion programs. For more details, contact Constantinos Coursaris, assistant professor of telecommunication, information studies and media, at coursari@msu.edu or (517) 353-3122.

IT Risk Assessment -- Information technology can create a lot of value for a business, but there are lots of ways things can go wrong. Students in the master's accounting program will work in teams of three or four to help local companies assess their IT processes. Issues covered range from adherence to basic security standards to identifying internal controls that may affect regulatory compliance. While no actual audit testing will be done, the team will interview company managers to produce a report to assist companies in developing a strategic IT plan and understanding IT governance issues. For more information, contact Brian Pentland, professor of accounting and information systems, at pentland@bus.msu.edu or (517) 432-2927.

HCI Reading Group at SI (U Mich)

Folks at the School of Information, University of Michigan are holding a HCI reading group!

The first meeting will be:
Friday, 11/09
12PM-1:30PM
Culliton Conference Room (in the connector between Shapiro Library & West Hall)

They will discuss the first reading and will talk about what sort of readings people are interested in for the future.

Week 1 Reading (Nov. 9, 2007):

E.L. Hutchins, J.D. Hollan, and D.A. Norman, "Direct manipulation Interfaces", in User centered system design, D. A. Norman and S. W. Draper Eds., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 87-124, 1985.
http://hci.ucsd.edu/120/direct-manip.pdf

You can also find this on the HCI wiki:
http://hcireadinggroup.pbwiki.com/

If you won't be able to make the first meeting they will also be meeting on Friday, 12/07.