Question 1: What issues do you believe are critical in planning for the integration and sharing

of information in an innovative firm?

The primary issue of information sharing within a firm can be whittled down to the

“C.I.A.” concept of information security: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. This was a

topic that I researched on at length in my master’s program for information systems. Although the

priority of any one these three facets does not (and should not) supersede the other, my strong

focus has always been placed on the confidentiality of sharing information. This is particularly in

light of the fact that there are several laws exist such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that

requires companies in possession of consumer financial information to implement security

measures to safeguard this information and the Credit Reporting Act that regulates the sharing of

consumer credit information and requires strict confidentiality (Kim & Solomon, 2021).

Confidentiality and the sharing of information can be addressed by implementing what is

referred to in information science as the “principle of least privileged”—this conclusively implies

that personnel in a firm should be allowed access only to information that is required to complete

his tasks and nothing further. A good example of the implementation of this policy was when I

worked as an employee with the automobile company Porsche and their cloud security providing

services. An authorized dealer contacted me about a series issue he was having, and I responded

by giving him the name of the relevant office he would need to speak to for a resolution. He

contacted our office again—very annoyed—that I had not given him a telephone number or email

address. It was then that I discovered that the dealership did not have access to any contact

information to any internal offices, and that employees in the offices where I worked were

allowed full access to all contact information of any office within Porsche—my assumption had

been that he had been privileged to this information because he used the same corporate
communications portal that we all used within the company. In hindsight, this made sense—there

certainly were offices and contacts that this dealership, in all consideration, did not need to have

at their disposal to provide the customer service they needed. The same principle can be applied

to all other businesses. What information departments do not need for their duties should not be

supplied to them, even if it seems to be harmless to begin with.

Integrity of information is also an important issue, particularly when a business is

composed of multiple branches. This ensures accuracy and completeness of data to prevent

errors, tampering, miscommunication that could result in loss or misuse of sensitive information.

Integrity is especially important in situations where data is used to make critical decisions, such

as in financial transactions, healthcare decisions, or national security matters. If data is

compromised or tampered with, it can result in serious harm to individuals or organizations. For

this reason, it is critical to implement strong controls and procedures to maintain the integrity of

data and prevent fraudulent activities.

Something of considerable importance in relation to integrity is maintaining data that is

updated regularly. A case example of this was an incident in Houston, Texas in which a patient

with substance abuse issues visited 17 different doctors and received 39 prescriptions for narcotic

painkillers all within a month because the statewide medical prescription database that medical

professionals are required to check for pattern of abuse had not been updated properly. This

clearly, in and of itself, presents a serious issue to consider when sharing information within a

business—making the information is up to date. Imagine the chaotic situation that could arise if a

financial institution was not updating their information properly and an unscrupulous customer

was granted 17 mortgages on one house and then disappeared!

 Finally, there is the availability of information. This facet should be apparent and

straightforward. Firms that are not able to access information for a plethora of reasons such as

system failure, cyber-attack, natural disasters, or even absence of the sole employee who has the

proper credentials to access the required information can experience devastating financial losses.

A 2020 survey conducted by Infrascale indicated that the complete inability to access information

costed companies as much as $50,000 per hour (Ruark, 2020). This type of issue calls for

implementation of adequate data backup plans and auxiliary equipment as well as guidelines for

recovery operations in the event of a disaster or attack. One such method I have seen is called

“warm sites”, in which companies lease with cloud server farms, keep updated information stored

there, and bridge connections for employees to work from these cloud servers in the event of a

catastrophic failure that would render access to information from the main servers impossible.
Question 2: At each level of the organization (top, middle, lower), what do you think are the

critical issues? What are the potential advantages of an innovative strategy for individuals at

each level? What should be the biggest fear at each level?

Many leaders fail to understand how lower-level employees are an asset to innovation

management and strategies and I believe this is because of the numerous challenges that relate to

their positional level within the organization. One of these issues is that lower-level employees

are less likely to be able to access pertinent information and valuable resources that they can

utilize to even participate in the innovation process to begin with.

Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that they are invited to attend executive level or

management meetings in an organization, which hinders them from learning about new

developments that create the incentive to draw from their own creativity and interest in

technology. Adding to this problem is the fact that lower-level employees risk not receiving the

proper recognition, credit, or incentives for their efforts that would drive them to strive harder for

even more unique ideas. This lack of gratitude only results in lackluster efforts and diminished

enthusiasm for new ideas. Finally, lower-level employees are unlikely to possess requisite skills

or talents to effectively use their creativity for innovative purposes. These skills would generally

be developed after years of experience using various forms of technology and refining problem

solving skills after having encountered various degrees of occupational related obstacles and

issues.

When we focus on mid-level employees, we see how they play a near pivotal role in

innovation strategies, as personnel of this caliber function as a metaphorical bridge between

lower level employees and executive level management—therefore taking on the responsibility of
communicating strategies, goals, and vision between the two or tiers within the organization.

However, these responsibilities also pose critical issues for mid-level employees. As one can

draw from the description, their tasks require the ability to navigate the intricate structure of an

organization and acquiring a deep understanding of its processes as well as communicating with

numerous departments and predicate stakeholders with the goal of coordinating efforts between

all organizational components to formulate innovative efforts. This is imaginably a taxing and

time consuming feat to accomplish. We also need to consider that these efforts are also

compounded with their other tasks and responsibilities such project management and team

leadership.

As previously mentioned with lower level employees, there also remains the problem of

lack of recognition for their efforts by senior management or executives, which inevitably results

in sentiments of frustration and waning motivation.

Finally, we have executive level employees and while their role in innovation

management is foundational (considering the fact that this level is the party responsible for

approving and finalizing business decision), their critical issues are similar to both mid and lower

level employees, yet they are unique in their own way. The first of which is the immediate need

to integrate their innovation efforts with other operational priorities such as business growth and

financial performance. This can interfere with critical business decisions such as resource

allocation and goal alignment.

Another obstacle is the pressure to deliver results as promised and materialize ending

products, services, and/or goals as scheduled. This risks forming a dangerous habit of being too

short sighted in terms of vision and goals and making decisions that are predicated on immediate
issues as opposed to goals that would serve far into the future. This erodes on establishing a

commitment to making innovative strategies and goals that properly align with each other.

Additional to all of this, executive level employees may not (similar to low level

employees) possess the requisite skills required to develop a creative thought pattern for

innovation. Someone who has spent years of staring at numbers, figures, and charts may not

always know about what currently existing technology is on the market and has always

concerned himself with keeping the business afloat while allotting decisions concerning

technology to department levels below him. (Case example: Hiroshi Yamauchi, former CEO of

video game titan Nintendo, stated in an interview that he had absolutely no interest in video

games whatsoever, nor did he have any training or remote knowledge in game programming or

design and had only played the highly successful console Super Nintendo for approximately 5

minutes before losing interest. His task was to keep the business operating successfully by

making the relevant business decisions)

Question 3: Think about things you have used for something besides its intended purpose.

What can managers do to help individuals capture that same feeling in the work environment?

This is a relatively easy question for me personally to answer. One of the tasks of ethical

hacking is obtaining the encrypted hash of a password, identifying the hash, and then using a

combination of dictionary words, numbers, and symbols to have a computer guess the password

and compare it to the hash. The longer the password, the longer it will take for a computer to

guess the password. In a normal scenario, the computer utilizes its CPU to run an algorithm in

which hundreds of millions of guesses can be performed each second. At face value, this sounds

astronomical—while it is for simple passwords containing names and words found in a dictionary

(i.e. n@scarfan123), more complicated passwords (i.e. Na$F@nRobFido55), the processor can

take days or weeks to discover the password.

This is where ethical hackers turn to the power of graphical processing units (GPUs)—

otherwise known as graphic cards, which are manufactured by corporations like Nvidia and AMD

for the purpose of playing modern video games which are highly demanding in relation to

graphics rending and visuals. The uniqueness of GPUs is that they have the ability to perform

calculations that require an extensive amount of parallel processing, which perfectly describes

hash functions. To give an analogy that explains how a GPU outperforms a CPU, assume a CPU

is a complete business with 500 employees in different departments that all work in tandem to

produce end products. In contrast to this, a GPU can be thought of as a business with 500

employees who all perform one single task. Much faster (however not ideal for a business since

only one task is performed). Programmers used this knowledge to harness gaming graphics

processors to complete tasks other than what it was designed and manufactured for—guessing
billions of passwords a second and exponentially reducing time to crack complicated passwords.

Of course, as is predictable in the field of ethical hacking and technology enthusiasts, we have

some hacking enthusiasts who need to go to extremes and spend $20,000 on a dozen of the most

high end graphics cards that, when coordinated to run together, can performed over 1 trillion

guesses per second.

This is a perfect example of innovation and discovering an alternative use for a piece of

technology that deviates from what it was originally designed for, making it much more efficient

in completing projects. Managers can foster innovation and the use of technology by finding

experts in said technology who know the inner workings of it and thinking of ideas in which it

might be able to be used in a work environment. There are many different ways in which

technology can be innovatively used for purposes other than its intended design. Recently, I read

about an individual who used a small solar panel—originally intended to supply energy to a

building structure—to power a miniature single board computer popularly known as “Raspberry

Pi” so that he could keep the device outdoors to record weather records without needing to

change its batteries every few hours. This idea was soon noticed by technology leaders and as a

result, USB connected solar panels entered the market.

Question 4: What are the most important characteristics for an innovative leader for an

organization to have.

Where innovation is concerned, curiosity is an important characteristic to have—it

promotes the desire to experiment with new ideas, explore different boundaries, and formulate

unique methods to solve problems. Lower risk aversity is another characteristic that promotes

innovation—leaders should not be afraid to take risks and try new ideas, even if failure is a

feasible probability. Empathy should be another characteristic of a leader in innovation—this is

the ability to give appropriate weight to the issues, concerns, needs, and perspectives of other

people—including stakeholders and employees. Strong communication skills (particularly in the

case of mid level management) are absolutely essential for relaying and interpreting ideas and

concerns between different parties of an organization. Persistence would also be a very strong

quality, as it ensures that a leader will be able to stand by a project throughout its life cycle even

when it face obstacles or is in danger of catastrophic failure. Most importantly, humility is a vital

characteristic of a leader—this would include the willingness to accept feedback from others, and

the ability to listen and learn from other stakeholders, even when he or she is certain that they

have “all the right answers”

References:

Kim, David and Solomon, Michael Fundamentals of Information Security. 4th ed., Jones &

Bartlett Learning, 2021

Ruark, Hannak (2020, May 13) “Infrascale Survey Highlights the Heavy Costs of Business

Downtime” https://www.infrascale.com/press-release/infrascale-survey-highlights-the-heavy-

costs-of-business-downtime/