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January 15, 2007
I Just Don't Get It
I've just returned from the Prentice-Hall National Sales Meeting in which the sales reps learn about new books and new products. It's a great meeting ... I'm so impressed with the dedication of everyone to learn as much as they can about their products.
There are about 500 people at the meeting and as I walked through the hallways it seemed to me that about every third person was using the term database.
"I'll check my database on that."
"He keeps all the contacts in a database."
"Our new database marketing system identifies key opportunities"
"Let's create a database of the events and sponsors ..."
Now, database technology is my thing and I'm attuned to that term, but even still, it seems like database was constantly in use.
If that is the case, why are our MIS database classes empty? Why do we have five students when a few years ago we had three sections of 35?
Here are some possibilities that come to mind:
- All the databases are already developed as part of licensed software
- All the database jobs went overseas
- Microsoft Access is so easy to use that no one needs a database class
- The U.S. is creating a huge shortfall of IS professionals
- We are doing a terrible job at marketing the IS profession
Can anyone think of other explanations?
In the weeks to come, I'd want to investigate these and other possibilities on this blog.
Posted by DavidK at January 15, 2007 05:28 PM | Permalink