MIS is not so management after all

When I entered MIS, I thought I would be a management student with heavy IT background. 4 years into the course and I found out it was 50-50. Seven months after graduating, I discovered it was more like 70% IT and 30% management.

Ateneo has a miscommunication of its MIS program. Half of my batch got surprised when we were required to learn programming! Yes, the department did explain that our ideal job is the CIO but they did not explain that the CIO is very very very far from the CEO.

As I went to some business discussions with my Industrial Engineer cousin, he explained some basic, I underscore the word b-a-s-i-c management principles which I just did not know. This is very regretful for someone who initially took MIS thinking it was management with heavy IT background.

I therefore suggest the Ateneo and specifically DISCS inform clearly to their freshmen what MIS is all about and more importantly what it is NOT about.

All these disillusionment must be the primary reason for Ateneo's School of Management's decision in creating an MIS-like program but more managmenet oriented. This will not be so hard as they already have a department that has classes that are very MIS-ish. Good thing though is these classes always come from the management perspective.

I've had dreams of making MIS a 50-50 Managment and CS course. Later on I've discovered that this is an impossible thing. In the world, we all need to find our niche. Either be IT or Management.


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Practice makes perfect.

Be a barangay chairman and councilor

It is a little known fact that in Makati, there is a shortcut to councilorship. The way it goes is the League of Makati barangay chairmen elect a president. This president is automatically counted as a city councilor.

The clinch is, you'll have to be a great supporter of the mayore before you can get elected to this special post.

This is one reason why Binay is so against the DILG city representative taking over as temporary mayor. He reasons out that since the current League president is suspended the vice president should take over as councilor, and then as mayor.


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Practice makes perfect.

JSP Hosting in the Philippines

Recently I have been searching for a local JSP hosting service. Unfortunately, it seems that this service is unavailable locally- ironic as we have a LOT of java programmers.

I do not want to risk apply for hosting at unknown companies that are located in India. Who knows, these may be fly-by-night setups.

If someone is to setup such a local hosting service, I bet there's a niche yet to be cornered.


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Practice makes perfect.

What's with the strong Peso?

There might be a lot of people wondering why we have a strong Peso nowadays. For years, we have been accustomed to depreciation and its ill effects.

Is this for real then? Are we really starting to take flight? Has our economy reached rock bottom and the only way is up?

We are still at rock bottom. Our economy is not yet up.
1) The main reason why we have a strong Peso is because of the US Federal Reserve's decision to depreciate the dollar.

2) Southeast Asia's regional currencies has since then been appreciating against the dollar. Take note, the Peso is not alone.

3) The economy, with all the government's PR, is still the same. We may have good economic fundamentals but the money is not trickling down. The majority doesn't have extra disposable income yet.

4) The Peso is a barometer of the nation's confidence. Unlike other currencies' rates which are dictated by supply and demand, our Peso weakens when uncertainties in the country appear. It also works vice versa albeit slowly.

Advice:
1) Use this opportunity to import. Dollar is weak and interest rates are dropping. What better conditions for business expansion.

2) Hoard dollars in January. I personally do not believe the Peso will stay below 50:1 for long. As I said, historically the Peso depreciates 6% a year so this year is simply a spike in the statistics.


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Practice makes perfect.