Week 3

Information gathering was the main topic of discussion in this week's lecture, also there was an open conversation about Green IT and its importance in our modern day society.

For starters, information is a certain amount of data that can range from hard facts to abstract ideas. It can be obtained/expressed in many different ways, like speech or the internet. Also it comes in many different types, like anecdotal, formal, personal etc. I must also specify here that no matter how wide meaning the term information might have it can be easily divided in two categories.

-Primary information: This kind of information could also be called “personal information” since its the information gathered by ourselves. There are many ways to obtain primary information, the most known and/or effective ways are via experimentation, questionnaire, observation and last but not least via experience.

-Secondary information: Information of such type comes from other people. More specifically, one can obtain secondary information by using resources such as journals, internet, books, watching TV, listening to radio etc.

The gathering of information is a procedure that can be considered a necessity in almost every section of our life, it is useful when applying for a new job, during negotiations, it can be used in order to be more effective against any competitors, or to be used in general as a mean to allow someone to give better consults. I can keep on giving examples all day long, however I believe that it is apparent to everyone how important is information gathering.

This process is divided in six steps: 1) Initial analysis of data and the way of obtaining it. 2) The actual collection of the information/data. 3) Analysis of the collected data that will lead to conclusions and plan generation. 4) Taking action based on the generated plan. 5) Collection of data from the previous steps. 6) Evaluation of success by using the data gathered in the previous step.

About the discussion of Green IT, I have to say I found it to be extremely interesting since I learned about how to conserve energy while using computer or other electrical devices, and I can wonder what would happen if each and every of us was able to use such techniques how much it would help to improve the ecological status of our planet.

Lastly, I believe the lecture about information gathering gave us some essential knowledge about our academic/professional future, however since I have been doing research myself for quite some time I found myself being familiar with most of the subjects discussed.