Competitive Advantage

About Nicholas Carr (the author of It doesn’t matter)

Nicholas Carr is a famous writer whose major areas of focus are on the social, economic, and business implications of technology. He was born in 1959 in and is a resident of America whose prowess in writing has led to his publishing of several books and articles on technology, business, and culture. Among the many books, he is known for includeThe Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains which was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. Others include ‘It doesn’t matter’ which has garnered a lot of controversial reactions from many readers, authors and scholars though the HBR staff voted it the best article to appear in the magazine in 2003.

It doesn’t matter: Nicholas Carr’s Position

In the book ‘it doesn’t matter’, Nicholas says that information technology has been a very important and integral part of business today. For a brief period, infrastructural technologies have opened opportunities for forward-looking companies to gain strong competitive advantages. Time after time, their availability has increased, and their costs have decreased. As time goes by It has become prevalent, ubiquitous, and part of the status quo. People have become used to IT and are no longer considered something unique for anyone. According to him, information technology has become a common feature in a non-proprietary technology infrastructure and has therefore lost its significance in the provision of a competitive edge or strategic advantage for business growth and profitability at the company level. Though used by organizations, from a strategic business standpoint, It gradually become invisible and do not longer matter anymore. He points here that if a company is to be profitable, IT does not matter anymore. The company’s vision and strategy are all that matters. If this can get interpreted from a non-biased standpoint, what Carr means is that IT is no longer a strategic resource for companies. They should also focus on others things and not overspend on IT alone as a feature to lead them to success.

My position
I do not agree with Carr’s position. Saying that IT does not matter is not correct. My differing side from his argument gets based on the fact that IT has today become an integral part of the organization which has helped it in conducting very many daily duties and transactions. IT infrastructure is imperative as it speeds and makes efficient many activities of the company taking care of duties that a man could do in the whole day within seconds. Today, managers make deals with others business partners at the comfort of their desks. Marketing of products has also been made easier through IT which does so through creating social threads via social media. Today, one does not have to appear physically in the shops but only does the ordering from the comfort of his/her home and relax waiting for delivery. IT has created a lot of opportunities and transformed the vast world into a small global village. Thanks to IT that communication between two people located in extreme corners of the Arctic and Antarctic can speak and do business. Apparently, its use is still needed today as was in the past. It matters and is very crucial.

Discussion question

Introduction
In various scientific inquiries, our aim is always to establish the causes of something. For example, we might want to establish the true causes of autism or causes of cancer or how the drug enables a patient to feel better and less pain. Also, we can be interested in knowing which cultural practices result in environmental problems in many other aspects. In such instances, we are testing the causal models. On the other hand, scientific studies also aim to establish the correlations between variables. Correlations aim at finding out the associations of variables. Variables are aspects that researchers measure which may differ from one observation to another, for example, behavior, weight, height, lifespan, income, grade-point average and fat intake. With the variables, we can assign a value to represent the variables.

Causation and correlation

We frequently experience instances of misuse between causation and correlation. For example in a British newspaper, it provides reports from a group of teenagers who were to give information about their behaviors. The survey aimed to establish if the parents of these teenagers were smokers. As a fact, the newspaper reported that children were exhibiting delinquent behaviors had parents who smoke. The results of this study seem to indicate correlations between two variables. However the headline of this printed newspaper is entitled, “”Parental smoking causes children to misbehave” Criticalthinking.org.uk, 2006). The professor in charge of the investigation mentions that cigarettes pack should have a warning b about the prominent health warnings and various social issues. However, this is a problematic assumption. First, the correlations there might be a reverse in that delinquent children make their parents have stress making them smoke.

Another example of a correlation that is assumed to be a cause is that children with bigger feet can better spell than those with smaller feet. The odd results of this study’s explanation are that those children with bigger feet are older and not quite related to being better in spelling. As children grow they develop big feet (Paulo, 2010).

Another example is that the countries in the south have high rates of divorces and lower rates of death. There is also the example that nations adding fluoride to their water experience a high level of cancer unlike those which do not. Though there are studies that have come to such findings, these responses would make more sense if the researchers would acknowledge the differences between causation and correlations (Murch, et al., 2004).

The 1998 study kindles the opposition to vaccine firestorm that provides suggestions that autism is as a result of vaccines have no support from the General Medical Council. The participants were biased, and it made the researcher commit various ethical breaches in his work. Andrew Wakefield‘s research paper no longer exists. The Researcher analyzed the health of 12 children showing signs of colon inflammation and autism shortly after receiving the MMR vaccinations (Wakefield, et al., 1998). T

hough this study raises alarms about autism and vaccine, a closer examination of this paper indicate a range of warning signs.. The researchers in their conclusion state flatly that, we did not find a close association between mumps, measles, and the syndrome and rubella vaccine. The researcher mentions that they have managed to identify that chronic enterocolitis among children could relate to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. Additionally, they state that the onset of symptoms was after, rubella, mumps and measles immunization. And that further examination should be done in studying the symptoms and its possible relation to the vaccine). This is a tame language and only studying 12 participants makes the study to lack credibility and validity (Stehr-Green, Tull, & Simpson, 2003). Up to date, no study has established the connection between autism and MMR shots. The evidence of a-pick-and-choose recruitment method is bias leading to a discredit of its conclusion (DeStefano, 2007).

Correlation provides a statistical measure that describes the direction and size of the relationship between one or two variables. However, the correlation between variables does not automatically mean a change in one of the variables as being the reason for the change in other variables values. Causation, however, means that one event leads to the occurrence of another event which means that there is a causal relationship in two variables (The Lancet, 2010). For example, smoking has a correlation to alcoholism, but it is not the main cause of alcoholism. Rather smoking causes a higher risk of lung cancer development.

Therefore incorrectly linking causation and correlation principles will lead to posthoc reasoning in which the incorrect assumptions generations are the incorrect links of two effects. The principles of causation and correlations are crucial to all researchers and scientists. It is also important for other not -scientists who study marketing, media and politics. Knowing these principles helps to promote honest evaluation and greater understanding to individuals at all ages (Science Daily, 2013).

The Football Pitch

The wheels continued to orbit on the axis of the hubcaps, all the way to Panola. It was a ten-mile trip that seemed to that it would not end in the next few decades. I could hear a whoosh, whoosh sound of the wheels as they ran through the rain puddles created earlier on that day. There was dead silence making one to hear even the drop of a pin on a sandy ground. We were all aware of what was at stake. Although it was a different thing for all of us, the obvious fact for both sides was that for us to have bragging rights in our future sports, we had to win this game. Every game in that season would not matter to us unless we won that game.

Every hit would be a nostalgic moment in our lives when we get old and are sitting down drinking coffee or porridge. We should be talking about the way we used to fly around the pitch, telling stories of who knocked who, or who hit who on their can. The bus was more of a tense silence than a sleeping silence such as the silence that is felt when groups of civilians invade the surrounding of another and expect to leave with items with which they should not leave. The most important thing that we expected to leave with was a good name or respect. The social activities help people to socialize and to read each others’ minds. The participation in social activities is a crucial element of the well-being of people as they help in enhancing empathy, communication, and connections.

The air was misty and dump and that gave us an impression that there was a possibility of postponing our game or have a game where we would be soggy with other liquids other than sweat. The house where we spent some time before the game commenced was full of the smell of hamburgers and hot dogs. The people that prepared that food stared at us with an intent that we would be overcome and succumb to their call. That put an awkward silence in the room, and we wanted to prove them wrong, that we would not give in to the call to buy the food. We knew that better planning of the activity ahead of us required us to be strong and tailor our efforts towards winning the game.

We then walked onto the pitch with our heads high as our pride also shined. It was clear in our walk that we were not going to back down on anything or anyone, that there was no weather too ferocious or an opponent that would be too large to make us lose the game. Then the heavens began to sprinkle as the air was filled screams and yelling. The field began receiving the players for both sides. It was indeed a great day for me. As we walked on top the pitch, anther feeling stepped onto my mind; we are not going to be outdone by the opponent in any way whatsoever. The smell in the field was like wet mildew as the red and white flew round the field. We played like that until the rain stopped and the results were impressive, yes, they were indeed impressive but to the favor of the opponent. I learned that proper planning results in success and that was where we failed.