Method of Check-In at the Airport

Kiosk check-in, none of us are really stranger to this interesting and time saving method of airline check-in. I travel a lot, business trips and personal trips, I found this method of check-in really handy, especially when I am running late and the flight is about to take off. The way the computer interacts with travelers is really cool, even a computer illiterate can find this method easy and helpful.

The way this technology is growing is unbelievable. There is always an on-going improvement process for this technology. Recently various language options were added at Delta kiosk check-in, which means if you don’t follow or understand English than you have a choice to select your preferred language, that is excellent. The improvement just does not stop there; excess baggage handling, problems with e-tickets and similar things are all done at kiosk check-in, neat method, and now we don’t have to wait in the line for the clerk to say, “Next”. All though this method will not reduce jobs, on the other hand the clerks can help travelers how to use it or if at all they are stuck in the check-in process.

The online checking method is also perfect for people like me who travel on business, if at all you don’t have to check-in anything, just go online 24hrs before departure and check-in that’s it.

But I wish one day they will allow international check-in from home computers using internet. All you do is put in your passport information, and it allows you to print your boarding passes. Something like

Kids and games on Internet

I was reading this interesting article called, "Girl Meets Game". The writer’s 3-year old daughter started using internet to play video games. Waw! Using internet at age 3, some of us started using internet at age 16. When Lily (writer's daughter) played her first game on internet at age 3, he found himself wondering about something, should I leave her alone or should I sit and watch, what should I do. Should I let her play or shutdown the computer?

The writer talks about kids websites like, PBS kids, Teletubbies, etc. He can see a big chance in his daughter, with internet and computer exposure at age 3, Lily was independent, now she was able to entertain herself, no need of anybody, even her buddies (mom/dad) of 3 years. That was a scary feeling to the writer; girl was dependent on him or his wife for almost 3 years now suddenly with the help of internet she is all independent, now she is able to entertain herself. What is internet or associated video games doing to our kids. Should we let them use computers at that early age, and if yes should we monitor 24x7, so should we make sure there are filters associated.

Writer further says he would make sure the computer is filtered for all adult contents, but he feels site such as pbskids.org help kids develop IQ and knowledge, which is necessary part of their growth. Computer games rewards kids for sticking with a problem until that problem is resolved. I think that is excellent, it will make them winner rather than a quitter. It will introduce them to passions, which will eventually help them.

There is a paucity of quality clinical data on little children and games, and the writer explains that video games often depend on analogies and symbols that kids may not understand in the way adults think. "Very young children are astonishingly concrete thinkers. If you look at a computer screen and understand that everything that happens on a computer is a metaphor for something real in life, it becomes very, very murky as to what they're actually getting out of this."

I found this article interesting as I am a proud father of 17month old daughter. At this early age she is curious and when ever she comes across computer all she wants do is stare at the screen and when ever she gets a chance hit on the keyboard.

Small businesses feel uneasy with the Internet

Only 16 percent of British small business managers think that the Internet has increased their operational efficiency, while nearly half think that it has made running their businesses more complex.
The survey of 422 SMEs, conducted by Cranfield, showed that despite a high level of SMEs embracing the Internet for their business (97 percent have email, 94 percent have broadband, and 84 percent have a website), 60 percent do not feel that the Internet has increased their operational efficiency.
The Internet makes SME lives more difficult," said Cranfield's Prof Burke, who with Dr Hussels, conducted the research. "Only 16 percent of UK SMEs feel the Internet has increased operational efficiency, which is a fairly startling discovery." Indeed, 46 percent feel the Internet has raised the complexity of running their business, with over 62 percent saying the Internet has increased competition from foreign markets - although this has another side, 56 percent of respondents said that the Internet had enabled them to sell their products abroad.
One in three SMEs strongly feel the Internet has made it harder to protect confidential company data, while 48 percent believed the Internet caused employees to waste time, thanks to distractions like social networking, personal web surfing etc.

Reengineering Work

I really enjoyed last week’s lecture on Reengineering Work; Don’t Automate, Obliterate and what Dr. Miller illustrated in the class was interesting and valuable to me, as I am firm believer of reengineering. My past job experiences gave me liking to this amazing phenomenon of growth. Examples discussed in the class are so true, we all fill employment or other such forms over and over again, giving identical information numerous times, this is really scary as errors and blunders are bound to happen in such circumstances.

Although many times even if we feel the importance of reengineering it is not that easy to reengineer as we all need blessings of our superiors. In my case I was always lucky as my seniors and even the top level executives of the company agreed to the changes, hence making my and my immediate managers life easy.

Below is a brief illustration of my experience related the basic guidelines to reengineer the business process.

The first guideline says, “Organize around outcomes, not tasks”. ---- Reorganizing our department we made sure that the team leads or responsible engineer remain in-charge of everything from start to finish. This individual is like main source for respective project(s). This worked perfectly well. If anybody had any questions they would go to this person. Outcomes were very clear to this person and he/she used respective tasks to complete outcomes.

The second guideline is my favorite, “Have those who use the output of the process performed the process”. ------- This is so true. If an engineer or any such technical individual is going to use the output of any given process, than why not let him/her take charge to complete the process as well. If for some reason he/she is not qualified to complete the process, in that case they can always take help from the experts and manage that process and stay knowledgeable to use it later.

“Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized”. ----- My first job out of undergraduate was to work with sales team sitting in various zones of the countries, even various time zones. As a technical individual I made sure the communication was done in a centralized way using all the various technology available, example online servers, emails, conference call, internet, etc. This process helped me coordinate and communicate things well while maintaining the benefits of flexibility and service.

This guideline is favorite of most of us. “Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the process”---- People who do the actual work should be able to take decision or make decision on their own and that process itself can have built-in controls. Why have chain of managers making decision on our work, unfortunately in many cases the manager is not aware of the details of our own work, so why he/she should make decision. It is the responsibility of the individual who work on a project and who is knowledgeable to take decisions as well. I think the managers or seniors should look at it but let the individual take their own decision(s). This helps to maintain confidence and if at all the decision is poor, this helps to learn from mistakes and not make it again.