The term Management Information Systems (MIS) has come to refer to a wide range of applications of computers to data processing and analysis problems in the private and public sectors. The pace of developments in computing in general, and MIS in particular, is breathtaking. Traditional concepts of how computers can and should be integrated into businesses are being challenged by worldwide telecommunications and transmission of sound, graphics, and video alongside of text. Virtually all successful businesses use computers extensively.
If you don’t like computers, and want to have a career in business that involves little use of themthink again. You don’t have to like them, but you will have to deal with them extensively. This is a fact of life along with the hole in the ozone, Oklahoma City, TWA 800, AIDS, and The Real World on MTV (now in its fifth season! ). Computers can have a profound impact on the way that power is distributed in society. Those who ignore computers are apt to be left out of important decisions.
You may even become the person in your firm who has responsibility for your firm’s use of information technology. Nevertheless, many people have little understanding of what computers are and what they can do. There is a desperate need in our society for liberally educated people who are able to balance the enormous possibilities of computing with its potentially harmful consequences. In the business world, there has been a gap between those who are computer smart and those who speak the language of business.
