Throughout the semester, each of you will prepare and present Industry Reflections focusing on a specific company strategic, policy or ethical topic, directly related to the course topic. These news items should be found in the IT industry trade journals like informationweek, eweek.com, internetweek.com, or computerworld.com, etc. You want to post the URL of the news (or paste the news content in the message) and the comments on a regularly basis, e.g. )Microsoft Aquires Revolution Analytics http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/microsoft-buying-revolution-analytics-for-deeper-data-analysis/d/d-id/1318754 Revolution Analytics is a company that specilizes in Data Analysis. They use the open source statistical and analytical R-language. Microsoft wants to be able to offer it’s customers these tools because they felt they were lacking in the data analysis area. Microsoft would have the ability to integrate it into their enterprise platform for business to use the be able to analyze more effectivly on customers and markets. 2)Industry Reflection; Three pillars of open house Governance Three Pillars of Open House Governance: http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/it-strategy/three-pillars-of-open-source-governance/a/d-id/1318585 open house software projects in the lead for commercial companies. Commercial companies make money by offering update, services and support but there are many questions about security, authority and culture. As open house becomes integral part of software and hardware stacks, important decision require to be taken. This article provide three guiding principal in this regards; Transparency is the key-> its important for the host company and open house software to be transparent like when any kind of issues occurs discus them through Blogs, IRC, discussion forms publicly. Set Governance parameters-> There are some governance guideline in open house like; code of conduct and community guideline( that should be followed by all the companies while presenting their projects), governance policy ( describe the structure or policy of the project) and maintenance policy (describe decision regarding project). Make every person successful-> its important to consider all elements roles and recognize value. The different element pr participants are; community participants, company employees, community advocate, contributors and enterprise customers. So open house that follow these three guidelines are more likely to expand and strengthen the projects. 3)Industry Reflection 1 – Diversity in IT key to innovation Diversity in IT key to innovation Fostering diversity in the tech workforce has long been a problem; the details of the extent of the problem were recently voluntarily revealed by Google (here). Their own data shows that their workforce is only 2% Black and 3% Hispanic and only 30% of their workers are female. The company admits that it is “not where we want to be when it comes to diversity.” This CIO Magazine article has a few simple ideas on how IT companies can increase diversity in their workforces: Understand the audience – take the time to understand the whole community that the company is serving Develop an equal opportunity employment policy – create policy with a clear framework for achieving goals Make the role compelling to job hunters – emphasis beneifts that will attract a wide range of candidates Include a mix of expertise on the hiring committee – this seems obvious but is often overlooked Gain recognition – brag about successes that the organization has in meeting these goals After many years in IT management I have personally seen the benefits of building a diverse hiring committee. Candidates feel more welcome when they are interviewed by people who are like themselves. Furthermore, candidates can see themselves working at the company better when they see people who look like them representing the company at the interview. Also, the last item on gaining recognition – Google is doing this in a backwards way but it is effective. They are publicly decrying the fact that their company is NOT as diverse as it should be and rather than just seeting goals internally, they are publicly challenging themselves by sharing their diversity data with the world. This is a great idea for self-regulation and will likely lead to many positive outcomes.