Welcome to my webpage! My name is Bobby Zasada; I currently reside in Orlando, Florida with my father. I am currently employed by JPMorgan Chase as a Senior Account Supervisor in their credit card division. My line of expertise includes working with VIP and celebrity account holders as well as coordinating emergency card and cash for Chase cardholders worldwide. I am currently attending The University of Florida via the online business program and anticipate graduating in 2009. My hobbies include computers, reading, traveling, and enjoying my golden retriever.
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Every business should have a web presence. The internet provides consumers a quick and easy way to compare product features, benefits and pricing. When a customer knows they can get the information they need from a particular company’s web site that company has gained a competitive edge and a satisfied customer. The advancement of internet capable devices allows consumers on the go internet access. This creates unlimited growth potential to any sized business. With a web presence small companies that were once limited in exposure based on there location are now subject to an unlimited customer base worldwide. If you have a product or service you don’t know where your next customer will come from, you must seize any opportunity to gain exposure, and any business of any size can use the internet to gain this exposure.
Feel free listen to my podcast here is the link. http://bobby0315.podOmatic.com/entry/2008-02-08T12_06_38-08_00
Podcasting is something that I never explored. I own an Ipod but never even considered podcasts as an interest. In the business environment I think podcasts could be very instrumental if implemented correctly. The podcast could be successful as long as it consistently added value to a customer base. They can be an easy way for the consumer to gain up to date information. The pros are numerous; however I feel the primary benefit is the ability to offer expanded knowledge of products as well as a medium to announce promotions that can stimulate business growth. There are only two real negative points to podcasts in the business environment that I can see. The first is the limited targeted audience because of the lack of podcast awareness. The second negative point would be the lack of knowledge of the consumer. I feel most consumers fail to understand how podcasts work and the value they can gain from their use.
Overall I really enjoyed this portion of the project because I learned how to create and how to subscribe to podcasts.
The internet provides social, economic, entertainment, educational and other benefits. These benefits also come with serious risks, risks that range from malicious to criminal. E-Mail fraud is a common tool that criminals can utilize to gain access to personal or confidential information. The information age that we live in provides many conveniences that people take for granted. The ability for workers to share information via E-Mail makes working on projects or common routine tasks much easier than it was prior to the advent of E-Mail. Today in business we utilize E-Mail to share information with clients, co-workers, other departments and vendors. This information sharing can come with great risks if the information was to fall into the wrong hands. Business matters that are handled in E-mail range from mergers to acquisitions, employee information, client personal data, and corporate financial information. This data if left unsecured can provide a competitor or criminal a wealth of knowledge that could cause severe financial impact that could leave a company financially liable.
Several years ago, I was notified by my employer that my personal information was compromised. My employer at that time was unable to provide me precise details as to what information was compromised. It took my employer two months to get back with me to let me know that it was nothing more than my name and a listing of some data based on work I had completed. Because initially I was unable to determine the extent of the damage that could have been done, I was left with no choice but to initiate fraud alerts on my credit bureaus as well as be very diligent in monitoring my credit. It came as a relief when I was notified that it was limited information that was disclosed. My employer at the time paid for monitoring of my bureaus, as well as provided me with a letter for my files. This letter provided me with the comfort that any impact would be their responsibility. This example can show the financial impacts that were at risk for my employer.
By implementing and requiring the use of secure E-mail in an enterprise a company can help limit the risk they are exposed to by using E-Mail. Secure E-mail provides encryption to the E-mail message so that the data being transmitted is not as vulnerable to a security breach. I encourage everyone to begin using secure E-mail in both their work and personal life. I currently work in the financial industry and I see first hand the impact that fraud has on both a business as well as the inconvenience it places in the consumers hands while investigations are taking place. A simple thing such as E-mail encryption can help prevent information from falling into the wrong hands. At my current employer we take the protection of our customer’s data as well as trade secrets very seriously, a breach of this information could cripple our business. To prevent this we have set guidelines regarding E-mail usage up-to and including usage with sensitive data. We also have regular inspections of our work area to ensure sensitive data is secure.
In this portion of the Computing Portfolio Project we were assigned to groups to work collaboratively. Walking into this portion of the project I was apprehensive and was not looking forward to the experience. At my current job I have been assigned to group projects and in those experiences it always felt like more work than had I just completed the task on my own. Those past experiences always were filled with anxiety because someone was always not on top of their responsibilities. This project was completely different and I feel the biggest reason for this difference is the ability to organize using a web-based collaboration system. The team worked together using Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint proved to be not only a great system for organizing the material for our project but also included many powerful tools to get the job done.
SharePoint includes tools that facilitate productivity and collaborative thinking. It allows for the creation of surveys, group shared documents, lists of contacts and tasks, storage of pictures, announcements and alerts. These functionalities proved to be very interactive and allowed our group to not only contribute but work together efficiently. Being a distance learner coupled with a challenging work schedule, SharePoint allowed me to contribute to the team’s effort when it was fit around my other daily demands. Because our team utilized the alert feature of SharePoint we were all notified when there was a change to any aspect of our project. This alerting system is so valuable because it drives the efficiency portion of a group project by not only letting a group member know something has changed but by also by providing a reminder to bring the project back into the scope of their daily priorities.
In this portion of the project our team worked for Gator Video, a company that develops, markets and distributes video DVDs that highlight various University of Florida sports. We were to select a sport to highlight, create a title for our video, brainstorm on the content and create an advertisement. We utilized the survey feature of SharePoint to quickly make these decisions. Many times in group settings making decisions can be very painful; there is so much going back and forth and indecisiveness. SharePoint made this aspect clear and simple; a simple survey was created for decision making purposes. The team quickly moved to make decisions about the direction our project would take. Moving forward with the project was an easy transition and we began contributing photographs and information for the advertisement aspect of the project. The ability to share files using SharePoint makes SharePoint invaluable as far as organizing your work when completing a group project. Where I currently work we use outlook to work on these types of projects. It lacks organization because there are emails about the project mixed with other work related emails, there are tasks that are assigned to others mixed with other daily tasks. In the end you spend more time trying to find what you are looking for, compared to actually working on the project. SharePoint proved to be not only easy to use, but provided a foundation for our project in how it kept all the information organized.
The project is now complete and you can view our completed advertisement at the link below. As a team we worked collaboratively and successfully created an advertisement that we are all proud of. The process was streamlined, simple and allowed each member of the group to contribute. I completely enjoyed this portion of the project and will be suggesting implementing Microsoft SharePoint where I currently work. The benefits this amazing web-based tool provides allow group members to focus and get the job done. Group members can spend less time following up and organizing, and spend more time in brainstorming, implementing and overall effectively working together.
Click here to view a copy of our advertisement.
In this portion of our Computing Portfolio Project we worked with Excel. I have always enjoyed working with Excel. I am going to age myself when I say I was around in the day of DOS and when Lotus 123 was the spreadsheet that was used. When I first started using Excel I fell in love with it. I use it at home and at work, friends and colleagues always come to me for assistance with their Excel projects. I am good with many of the features and in most cases have always learned the aspects of what I was trying to do from the excellent online help Excel provides.
This project involved the use of Pivot Tables. Something that I have never utilized in the past when I have completed any project I was working on. I am so happy I have learned about this powerful feature that is built in. The amount of time this feature saves you in summarizing and manipulating the output of your data is something that I cannot even begin to place a value on. This powerful feature can make the daunting task of summarizing your data something that you can complete in the matter of a few clicks. The ability to customize the output into different layouts and summary levels allows you to create just the report you are looking for.
We also worked with the Goal Seek feature of Excel. I like this feature as well as it makes performing goal calculations very simple. In the past I have always taken the time to create a separate cell and calculate these values with the use of formulas. This feature makes it very simple and can prevent an easy error that could be created from the use of a formula.
Here is a screen shot of my pivot table that I created in my project.
In this portion of our Computing Portfolio Project we worked with Microsoft Access. I self taught myself Access about five years ago when I had my own internet based business. When I was involved in that business I needed to learn Access to customize the features of my online store. I not only learned Access but also learned how to code ASP web pages to provide interaction between a web page and my Access database. I love working with databases of any form. I have worked with other software databases that have been on the market over the years. On a whole I like Access for the many features it provides and the ability to quickly create reports, forms, queries, or in other cases where you need to manipulate your data.
Databases are critical in today’s business world because the vast amount of data available to us. We must be able to manage it correctly and efficiently. This management is a key factor in being able to make good business decisions. In today’s ever changing competitive economy we must be able to make decisions quick enough to out do our competitors. This ability to make accurate business decisions is the first key to being successful. Microsoft Access provides the tools to not only access the data but also manipulate or modify data quickly and accurately. The database structure provides ways to easily link data that has common fields that can help create rich reporting solutions. Databases can be implemented in business today to track many aspects of daily business from interactions with customers and suppliers to also providing a mechanism to control inventory and assets.
I haven’t done any database work in several years since I have closed my internet based business to pursue other career objectives. This project was a nice refresher and allowed me to sharpen my database skills. I cannot say I learned anything in particular in this portion of the project as I have done much more complex things with Microsoft Access in the past. However, it was a great experience to refresh my skills and it brought back fond memories of when I self taught myself this powerful program.
Here is a screen shot of the relationships I created in my Access Database.
