Yes, I am a prisoner...I take cash, check or credit, thank you!

I spent the day with good friends at the Angola State Prison Rodeo. For those who are unaware, the rodeo is at the penitentiary in the middle of nowhere. You aren't allowed to bring electronics into the facility supposedly (I saw alot of contraband) and it wouldn't help anyway. You don't actually get substantial cell service until you get to the main highway...almost ten miles away.

Now where does technology fit into all of this? I have to admit that I was a skeptic when I was asking myself...cash or credit? I typically don't carry cash ever. Usually, at events that come and go such as this one, cash is the only form of payment taken. So I left a few minutes early and hit up an ATM before I met up with my group.

Yet to my surprise, when I got through the gates, I could pay for everything with a card. I was shocked! Food you could purchase with cards. Crafts, made and sold by the prisoners, could be purchased with credit cards. I took my claim check (because they still don't find it smart to give a prisoner a CC number) to the payment station and to my surprise, the clerk was inputting data into a computer with a terminal hooked to it for running cards. Clearly, the service had to have some form of phone connection or wireless service.

All of this to say that if you ever find yourself as a prisoner making crafts for the general public at large, rest assured you can and will get your money. Because Angola State Prison rodeo is forward thinking when it comes to IT. You, oh convicted one, can get your money via cash, check, or the coveted plastic payment method!

Yeehaw!

Transforming Change

After listening to several panelists discuss the changes that IT has made to their organizations, one of the biggest things that has stood out to me is being able to share information. Some want to share information with employees. Others want to be able to share information with the public.

But the key theme here is that with information to be managed, what do you do with it and how does IT help you to distribute it? In the case of Healing Place Church, they have turned to an online campus to spread their information to the public. Church is no longer just church as normal.

In the case of Our Lady of the Lake and healthcare, the sharing of information has insured that healthcare can be administered quickly and efficiently. Healthcare officials no longer have to worry that patients are getting the right medication or things aren't being documented and stored.

This sharing of information is what I picked up on as essential to the spreading of IT as a network based strategy in the future of businesses.