Keeping your head in a revolution

Explores new developments in information services

The Mobile Phone as a Globalising Artefact

This paper presents the findings from a qualitative study of mobile phones and youth culture in Melbourne, Australia. The focus is on how the social dynamic resulting from the use of such communications tools has created a paradigm shift that has changed the nature of inter-human relations. Mobile facilitated interaction is driving a fundamental change in social mores with respect to engagement and commitment, to notions of fluid time versus fixed time and ultimately to urban mobility. Connectivity is becoming central to what it means to have a social identity and users are responding to this by merging bits of data to create their ‘ideal digital self’ through which they communicate socially. This calls into question the nature of ‘digital identity’, indicating it is not only about how much information can be restricted, but rather, what is revealed. While the results are based on a localized study, it is proposed that this phenomenon is happening across societies and that mobile phones themselves are becoming the globalizing icon of youth culture in the early 21st Century

Harmonization Handbook: Accountable Governance in the Era of Globalization: The WTO, NAFTA, and International Harmonization of Standards

Over the past two decades, new international trade and investment rules of unprecedented scope and power, coupled with massive changes in business practices and organization, have resulted in an astonishing transformation of economic and social policy around the world. This new arrangement is often labeled "economic globalization." However, in addition to its economic consequences, globalization has a major effect on domestic governance, and thus on public health, economic development, and social and environmental policy. Harmonization is the name given to efforts to reconcile product standards and other regulatory policies adopted by the United States with standards and policies in other nations to create uniform international standards. Unfortunately, many international standards have been developed by industry dominated groups, and harmonization has been promoted by international corporations as a means to undermine health and safety regulation

Harnessing Openness to Improve Research, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Colleges and universities should embrace the concept of increased openness in the use and sharing of information to improve higher education. That is the core recommendation of this report. The report was produced by CED's Digital Connections Council (DCC), a group of information technology experts that advises CED's business leaders on cutting-edge technologies

E-Business in Ukraine: Peculiarities, Tendencies, Prospects

Introduction. It is evident that the electronic business plays a central role in the economy development, facilitating the exchange of information, goods, services, and payments. We feel very strongly that entrepreneurs who understand the role and significance of e-business and are ready to meet the sharply expanding scale of cross-border e-commerce will be the winners of tomorrow in the world market. An initial point to underline in connection with these tendencies is that business which does not give some attention to e-business and e-marketing promotion could very easily loose its place on the market. This explains the hyper attention to the e-business nowadays and as a result the necessity of studying this question. The purpose of the article is to study the characteristic features of e-business in Ukraine, to determine the latest tendencies of its development and to propose the certain steps to increase its growth. Results. Recent researches support the view that organizations can have a significant benefit of using e-business tools in their everyday operations. The article examines the benefits, problems and limitations of e-business in Ukraine. It has been distinguished that Ukraine is an attractive market for the development of e-commerce. It has a large potential for e-business and its related activities. In 2018 Ukraine ranked the 2nd place in the turnover growth of online usage among European countries. A major factor stimulating Internet growth is the drastic improvement of the telecommunications infrastructure in the country. Advantages and risks of new electronic marketing techniques were considered in the article. The main strengths of online marketing system are high quality customer service, greater reach, time saving customer loyalty, easy access to information, 24 hours access and personal contact with the customer. Considering the risks, it was admitted that e-marketing requires considerable time investment to get the results and it takes a long time to generate meaningful interactions. Conditions that should be arranged for successful e-business model implementation were determined. It was pointed out that in order to increase the development of e-business in Ukraine that certain steps such as harmonizing of essential laws and standards to the European ones, enhancing the use of web analytics tools, providing an appropriate choice of communication channels and improving administrative regulations regarding e-business procedures should be taken. In this regard, Ukrainian businesses need all the support they can get from policymakers and regulators in order to be able to grow in an increasingly competitive global market. In conclusion, in order to stay effective, to improve operational efficiency, profitability, and to strengthen their competitive position business organizations should definitely adopt e-business model. It is not enough to have high quality products or services to operate successfully in the market; productive introduction of new e-business models is vital in a computerised electronic environment. In this regard, if Ukrainian government wants its companies to fully play their role in a globalized world, it needs to create a harmonized market and a favourable environment where domestic e-business companies can flourish. Prospects for further research can be seen in the analysis of the methods of measuring the effectiveness of different e-business models

The Digital Difference of Online Social Networking in the Carribean

Users of online social networking sites have made significant advances in the development of global virtual communities. With their origins in listservs, egroups, blogs, chat rooms and instant messaging, social networking sites provide opportunities for users with required skills, to construct public or semi-public profiles, to interact with ???friends??? and colleagues across the globe and to collaboratively create social capital. The presentation will focus on the impact of social networking on the Caribbean. It will examine participation of Caribbean people, including candidates in recent general elections held in 2007 and 2008, in popular social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. The assessment will cover factors influencing membership and participation, conditions under which content is created and information shared, as well as issues of privacy and protection. In recognition of the successes of these sites in facilitating interaction among large geographically dispersed groups of users, sharing content, collaborating with peers, and linking communities, the presentation will also examine and assess the role of information literacy the activities of library social networking sites, and their contribution to the development of interactive information resources in the social sciences.International Federation of Library AssociationsUniversity of Toronto, LibraryUniversity of Toronto, Faculty of InformationUniversity of Illinois, LibraryTitle VI National Resource Center Grant (P015A060066)unpublishednot peer reviewe

Global opportunities for securing overseas retail deposits within the UK banking industry

The UK banking industry is very competitive and banks work hard to keep their existing customers and entice new customers to join their banks. This report will focus on a single global opportunity for a UK bank to secure deposits from overseas customers in order to facilitate its growth strategy. To protect the identity of the bank, it will be referred to as the UK Bank throught this report