Mobility has become a prominent feature in African societies: Populations all over Africa are both mobile and politically and economically marginal. Yet these populations are actively engaged in maintaining social networks across localities. Mobilities, ICTs and marginality in Africa looks at the dramatic changes brought about in socially marginal populations by new ICTs in general and mobile phones in particular. The book aims to situate the cultural, social and, in some cases, transnational context of ICT appropriation and virtual connectivity so as to reposition Africans from various countries and contexts as active agents of social change. The intricacies of local ICT use and the dynamics of mobility in the African context enables us to better understand material cultures, relationships between people, new media and social networking. Equally explored in relation to ICTs are the social and spatial dynamics of communication, association and belonging across spaces – particularly physical borders, social boundaries and confines and possibilities informed by the habitus of bodies and practices. Mobilities, ICTs and marginality in Africa is rich in theoretically informed case studies that lend themselves to comparative perspectives and to ethnographies from beyond Africa.

Rapid technological advancements have the ability to positively or negatively impact corporate growth and success. Professional leaders and decision makers must consider such advancements when designing and implementing new policies in preparation for the sustainable future of the business environment. Developing Strategic Business Models and Competitive Advantage in the Digital Sector focuses on the application of preemptive planning in the media and entertainment industries to combat an increasingly uncertain future of innovation and competition. With research-based examples and analysis, this book is an essential reference source for academicians, researchers, and professionals interested in learning more about the impact of technology on industry success, including the changes and challenges created by the Internet and electronic media.

'A fascinating expose of the world behind your screen. Timely, often disturbing, and so important' Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women 'Takes us beyond Zuckerberg, Bezos et al to a murkier world where we discover how everything online works and who benefits from it. Fascinating, engaging and important' Observer 'Could not be more timely' Spectator The internet is a network of physical cables and connections, a web of wires enmeshing the world, linking huge data centres to one another and eventually to us. All are owned by someone, financed by someone, regulated by someone. We refer to the internet as abstract from reality. By doing so, we obscure where the real power lies. In this powerful and necessary book, James Ball sets out on a global journey into the inner workings of the system. From the computer scientists to the cable guys, the billionaire investors to the ad men, the intelligence agencies to the regulators, these are the real-life figures powering the internet and pulling the strings of our society. Ball brilliantly shows how an invention once hailed as a democratising force has concentrated power in places it already existed - that the system, in other words, remains the same as it did before.

Software startups make global headlines every day. As technology companies succeed and grow, so do their engineering departments. In your career, you'll may suddenly get the opportunity to lead teams: to become a manager. But this is often uncharted territory. How can you decide whether this career move is right for you? And if you do, what do you need to learn to succeed? Where do you start? How do you know that you're doing it right? What does "it" even mean? And isn't management a dirty word? This book will share the secrets you need to know to manage engineers successfully. Going from engineer to manager doesn't have to be intimidating. Engineers can be managers, and fantastic ones at that. Cast aside the rhetoric and focus on practical, hands-on techniques and tools. You'll become an effective and supportive team leader that your staff will look up to. Start with your transition to being a manager and see how that compares to being an engineer. Learn how to better organize information, feel productive, and delegate, but not micromanage. Discover how to manage your own boss, hire and fire, do performance and salary reviews, and build a great team. You'll also learn the psychology: how to ship while keeping staff happy, coach and mentor, deal with deadline pressure, handle sensitive information, and navigate workplace politics. Consider your whole department. How can you work with other teams to ensure best practice? How do you help form guilds and committees and communicate effectively? How can you create career tracks for individual contributors and managers? How can you support flexible and remote working? How can you improve diversity in the industry through your own actions? This book will show you how. Great managers can make the world a better place. Join us.

The cofounder of Microsoft, Bill Gates helped transform society by ushering in the era of ubiquitous personal computing. This book examines the life and achievements of this standout American inventor and philanthropist. Bill Gates has been instrumental in creating and developing the home computing era that has thoroughly transformed nearly every aspect of our lives, from work to commerce to communication. Stepping down as CEO of Microsoft in 2000 after 25 years at the helm, he remained as chairman, a position he still holds. This book paints a vivid picture of Bill Gates that covers his early life and his years as an inquisitive and adventurous student to his experiences as a budding entrepreneur and billionaire philanthropist who has often been listed among the richest individuals in the world. Author Michael Becraft presents complete information on how Microsoft evolved, from the company's inception until Gates's departure from active leadership; documents the economic, ethical, financial, legal, management, and leadership applications inherent in Gates's work; and examines the criticism that Gates's actions and decisions have drawn throughout his career. Provides a balanced and unbiased account of Bill Gates that includes his own writings as well as criticisms of Gates's management style that allows readers to reach their own conclusions Documents Gates's philanthropic activities and commitment to dispersing some of his accumulated wealth to help those in need worldwide Includes images, timelines, and charts and graphs that enrich the reading experience as well as an extensive bibliography that provides researchers with easy access to original source documents

Very few software projects are completed on time, on budget, and to their original specification causing the global IT software industry to lose billions each year in project overruns and reworking software. Research supports that projects usually fail because of management mistakes rather than technical mistakes. Risk Management in Software Development Projects focuses on what the practitioner needs to know about risk in the pursuit of delivering software projects.Risk Management in Software Development Projects will help all practicing IT Project Managers and IT Managers understand: * Key components of the risk management process * Current processes and best practices for software risk identification * Techniques of risk analysis * Risk Planning * Management processes and be able to develop the process for various organizations

IT management and staff are called upon to perform the almost-impossible tasks of evaluating, purchasing, integrating, and maintaining complex IT systems, and directing these systems to meet the ever-changing goals of an organization. Add to that the spending restraints of a down economy, and IT managers find themselves in need of a thoughtful, real-world guide that can maximize resources and bring efficiency to often chaotic environments.

IS Management Handbook, Eighth Edition details how IT professionals can align people, information, and technology with the strategic goals of an organization. The handbook offers technical and business insight from dozens of leading names from the technology sector, with a major focus on maximizing the performance of existing resources during tough economic times.

The handbook provides the information that allows IT managers to effectively organize people and processes, and efficiently integrate and maintain infrastructure, applications, support systems, e-business tools, and databases.

The nature of information technology work has changed dramatically in the past decade. The rise of the Internet has driven massive shifts in both what IT people are asked to do, and how they are required to do it. The Internet has made possible such far-reaching phenomena as electronic commerce, outsourcing and offshoring, new styles of programming and system development, virtual work, virtual communities, and realtime communications. ""Managing IT Professionals in the Internet Age"" explores these impacts, and the ways in which the work life of IT professionals - from the perspectives of both the individual worker, as well as managers - has had to change and adapt to the Internet Age.

A major, comprehensive professional text/reference for designing and maintaining security and reliability.
From basic concepts to designing principles to deployment, all critical concepts and phases are clearly explained and presented. Includes coverage of wireless security testing techniques and prevention techniques for intrusion (attacks). An essential resource for wireless network administrators and developers.

More and more, the shape of the IT organization is critical to business systems delivery, yet all too often this definition is approached in a haphazard fashion - often based on old theory and out-dated experiences rather than being moulded to the realities of the world in which we work. Shaping the IT Organization considers how one should go about the moulding of an IT function in order to ensure effective output from the resources within that organization. It focuses on understanding precisely the elements and challenges within such a definition. Key topics covered: What is an organization?: Issues and key considerations for IT from an organizational perspective, including the idea of the 'organization lifecycle' and the very real impact this can have within the IT environment. Why change?: The impact of generic business approaches demanded by current business models and pressures. Solutions vs Products: The IT organizational impact of moving from a product-based to a solutions-based business model. Outsourcing: The increasing trend to place critical elements of IT's delivery capability outside the core business means that IT functions are often poorly aligned to both manage these relationships and rise to the challenges that outsourcing offers. Resource Management: Fundamental questions about people and the need to adapt resource management approaches to take a radical approach to how we both manage and empower the people within those models in order to deliver what is required.

When information is a weapon, everyone is at war.

We live in a world of influence operations run amok, a world of dark ads, psy-ops, hacks, bots, soft facts, ISIS, Putin, trolls, Trump. We've lost not only our sense of peace and democracy - but our sense of what those words even mean.

As Peter Pomerantsev seeks to make sense of the disinformation age, he meets Twitter revolutionaries and pop-up populists, 'behavioural change' salesmen, Jihadi fan-boys, Identitarians, truth cops, and much more. Forty years after his dissident parents were pursued by the KGB, he finds the Kremlin re-emerging as a great propaganda power. His research takes him back to Russia - but the answers he finds there are surprising.

This research review, written by two pioneers of e-commerce, discusses thirty of the most important papers written in the fields of economics, marketing and strategy. Topics covered include evaluation of the benefit to consumers of competition and product variety online, examination of auctions and reputational feedback mechanisms designed to mitigate informational asymmetries in online markets, and the debate on digital property rights including privacy, piracy and the open source movement. The review provides a thoughtful and accessible consideration of the subject of e-commerce, invaluable to scholars and practitioners alike.

'IT in Business: A Manager's Casebook' examines the impact of new IT initiatives from the business angle. The case material is derived from the year's best research projects from three leading UK Business Schools - Bath, Cranfield and Warwick.

This incisive exploration of managing processes in IT companies is essential reading for IT managers in 'end-user' businesses who have to deliver strong business benefits from IT. In a climate of rapid and continual change, such contemporary information is invaluable.
'IT in Business: A Manager's Casebook' tackles managerial issues using specific case studies such as Tesco, Johnsons News Limited and the Department of Health to illustrate these points.
David Targett is the Professor of Information Management at Imperial College Management School, University of London. For eight years, 1990-98, he was the Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Centre for Research into Strategic Information Systems (CRSIS) at the University of Bath. Previously, he was at the London Business School and before becoming an academic he was an industrial engineer in the motor industry.
David Grimshaw is Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at Cranfield School of Management and was previously at the University of Leeds and Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. He has wide teaching experience and has taught in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Portugal, Russia and Singapore. He has ten years' practical experience in information systems and as an independent consultant has advised many companies on strategic information systems planning and on geographical information systems.
Philip Powell is Professor of Information Systemsat Goldsmiths College, University of London. Prior to this he was Reader in Information Systems and ICAEW Academic Fellow in the Operational Research and Systems Group, and Director of the Information Systems Research Unit at Warwick Business School. Before becoming an academic he worked in insurance, accounting and computing. He has taught in Southampton, Australia and Portugal and held a number of other posts overseas.
Includes projects from three of the leading business schools - Bath, Cranfield, and Warwick
Full of case studies from organizations such as Amtrak and Unilever
Provides up-to-the-minute information on what real-life developments and initiatives that are developing in this area

Information & communication technology (ICT) and the automotive sector are two of the most important industries in the EU and the US. The EU's eastern expansion and economic globalization have reinforced competition on the one hand; on the other hand the importance of outsourcing and off-shoring has increased. Against this background the intensification of innovation dynamics becomes crucial - and with them the role of regional innovation clusters. The analysis examines seven regions and six EU countries. The focus is on cluster and network dynamics in both industries, as regional ICT clusters are playing an increasingly central role in many European regions. Specialization and structural change in the automotive sector are highlighted, and new strategic approaches for multinational companies and changes in policy options are identified.

The authors present a multifaceted, global view of the human dynamics of education, supply, demand, & career development in the information systems and technology industry, offering a tool to meet the challenges of improving education & employing an optimal supply of information systems & technology graduates in the decades to come.

ITIL(R) 4 is the latest evolution of the leading best-practice framework for ITSM (IT service management). It has been significantly updated from ITIL v3 and addresses new ITSM challenges, includes new technologies and incorporates new ways of working. ITIL(R) Foundation Essentials ITIL 4 Edition is the ultimate revision guide for candidates preparing for the ITIL 4 Foundation exam. It is fully aligned with the Foundation course syllabus and gives a clear and concise overview of the facts. Whether you are taking an ITIL 4 Foundation training course or are a self-study candidate, new to the framework or looking to upgrade your ITIL 2011 certification, this guide is the essential companion. It: Provides definitions of the key terms and concepts used in ITIL 4; Presents detailed information in clear, user-friendly and easy-to-follow ways through tables, bullet points and diagrams; and Explains the key figures and diagrams in the ITIL syllabus. This second edition has been updated to align with amendments to the ITIL(R) 4 Foundation syllabus, including: Replacing 'change control' with 'change enablement' throughout; The removal of 'IT' from the definition of a change; and Updating definitions for customer, sponsor and user. Start preparing for your ITIL Foundation exam - order your copy today. ITIL(R) is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. This book is an official AXELOS licensed product.

Why do some games seem to be universal while others have a particular connection to the culture of the people playing them? Around the World in 80 Games is about the mathematics of chance, game theory, gamification, gaming strategies and computer games. Traversing the globe, Marcus du Sautoy looks at the genesis of games new and old, explores how to invent a good game and explains the fascination of a popular lockdown game. The most simple games endure: board games, card games and dice games have captivated us for centuries and the acclaimed mathematician and author of The Creativity Code (among many others) will once again bring mathematics to the fore with insight and aplomb in Around the World in 80 Games.

Hardbound. Global changes in policy and technology in the telecommunications industry in the 1990s are described and analysed in this volume, showing how this industry creates a bridge for society's transition to the next century. Dynamic innovations in technology are encouraging a relatively free world market and a Global Information Infrastructure for use by developed and developing economies. The volume discusses the challenges posed by these innovations for closing the gap between the information-rich and information-poor. Lessons are included for corporate and individual users as they prepare for the Global Information Infrastructure. Societal impacts of new networks, multimedia, cellular communications, equipment standards, telemedia, digital cash, the Internet, and innovative satellite systems are explored in detail with a view to future developments.

'An indispensable guide.' Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn 'Tech's most valuable teacher.' Forbes Silicon Valley's leading intellectual and the founder of O'Reilly Media explores the upside and the potential downsides of our future - what he calls the 'next economy'. Tim O'Reilly's genius is to identify and explain emerging technologies with world shaking potential - the World Wide Web, Open Source Software, Web 2.0, Open Government data, the Maker Movement, Big Data. 'The man who can really can make a whole industry happen,' according to Executive Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt, O'Reilly has most recently focused on the future of work - AI, algorithms, and new approaches to business organisation that will shape our lives. He has brought together an unlikely coalition of technologists, business leaders, labour advocates, and policy makers to wrestle with these issues. In WTF? he shares the evolution of his intellectual development, applying his approach to a number of challenging issues we will face as citizens, employees, business leaders, and a nation. What is the future when an increasing number of jobs can be performed by intelligent machines instead of people, or only done by people in partnership with those machines? What happens to our consumer based societies - to workers and to the companies that depend on their purchasing power? Is income inequality and unemployment an inevitable consequence of technological advancement, or are there paths to a better future? What will happen to business when technology-enabled networks and marketplaces are better at deploying talent than traditional companies? What's the future of education when on-demand learning outperforms traditional institutions? Will the fundamental social safety nets of the developed world survive the transition, and if not, what will replace them? The digital revolution has transformed the world of media, upending centuries-old companies and business models. Now, it is restructuring every business, every job, and every sector of society. Yet the biggest changes are still ahead. To survive, every industry and organisation will have to transform itself in multiple ways. O'Reilly explores what the next economy will mean for the world and every aspect of our lives - and what we can do to shape it.

ITIL is the leading best-practice framework for ITSM (IT service management) and is globally adopted in both the public and private sectors. The latest evolution of the framework - ITIL 4 - has been significantly updated and addresses new ITSM challenges, includes new technologies and incorporates new ways of working. ITIL 4 has evolved to a value system-focused approach that can be integrated with other management practices and ways of working, such as Agile and DevOps. Its end-to-end digital operation model has been designed to help IT teams create, deliver and operate technical products and services that fit their organisation's wider business strategy. ITIL(R) 4 Essentials contains everything you need to know to pass the ITIL 4 Foundation Certificate, plus more. It covers practices and concepts that are not addressed as part of the Foundation syllabus, making it ideal for newly qualified practitioners. The book offers practical tips - based on the author's extensive experience - for applying service management in the real world, with symbols used throughout to highlight which content is related to the ITIL 4 Foundation syllabus and which is not. Ideal for self-study candidates and training participants, ITIL 4 Essentials will prove a helpful companion to their studies and a practical aid for their professional development. Project managers, contractors or consultants with limited study time will also find it essential to their part-time education. This second edition has been updated to align with amendments to the ITIL(R) 4 Foundation syllabus, including: Replacing 'change control' with 'change enablement' throughout; The removal of 'IT' from the definition of a change; and Updating definitions for customer, sponsor and user. A perfect companion before, during and after your ITIL exam - buy your copy today. ITIL(R) is a registered trademark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. This book is an official AXELOS licensed product.

This volume of the International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics explores the latest economic and financial developments in Africa and Asia. Chapters cover a range of topics such as: the relationship between good stewardship, agency costs, and performance of South African firms; stock market dynamics in Thailand, including risk & mutual fund clustering and zero-investment portfolios strategies; and a special focus on financial markets in Indonesia such as fundamental indexing with Markowitz mean variance portfolios, a financial performance analysis of highway companies before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, and a credit risk scoring model for consumer financing. Comparative Analysis of Trade and Finance in Emerging Economies also addresses the issue of whether the West African Monetary Zone can form a Currency Union, and, examines the impact of non-tariff measures of China on the export of agricultural products of Laos. These peer-reviewed papers touch on a variety of timely, interdisciplinary subjects such as stock markets and the effects of public policy. Together, ISETE 31, is a crucial resource of current, cutting-edge research for any scholar of international finance and economics.

The Universal Service Desk (USD) - Implementing, controlling and improving service delivery defines what a USD is, why it is valuable to an organisation and how to build and implement one. It also discusses the evolution of the USD as part of integrated workplace management. Understand the essentials of any USD - buy this book today!

This work uses case studies to explore why large scale electronics failed to win a leadership position in the early computer industry and why IBM, a firm with a heritage in the business machines industry, succeeded. The cases cover both the US and the UK industry, focusing on electronics giants GE, RCA, English Electric, EMI and Ferranti.