Thanksgiving activity

Over Thanksgiving, I asked my mom what she thought is the most important information technology she uses. She simply said, "eRSP". My parents run a small local business where they hire caregivers and send them to elderly clients' houses to take care of them. They use a computer software to schedule their caregivers' shifts, keep track of clients' needs and requests, keep tabs on their business partners, log all correspondences, and for billing. I've used it before when I was needed to work for them; eRSP is a pretty useful software and I can see why my mom views it as more valuable than email or telephone. I think it's similar to Epic of Madison, although I don't know as much about that software. My mom said that when eRSP first came out, it wasn't easy to use but with time and customer feedback, the software has improved and made them more productive and allowed them to expand their business. She thinks that such technology has allowed her to enjoy her job more, because she loves interacting with the caregivers and elderly clients, and has never liked the tedious tasks of logging information and scheduling caregivers.

With respect to the course, I think this highlights the view of the Internet as a "tool of the mind," allowing people to concentrate on what they need to and not have to exactly remember the last time they paid a marketing visit to a reference source, for example. Everything is easily searchable. The ability of networks in general to store large amounts of data is something that has really pushed businesses into a new age of organizational efficiency.