Final Paper | How Did Social Media Effect Occupy UC Davis?

As I was searching for a paper topic, one was unfolding before me over the Thanksgiving holiday. I am writing about how social media played a role in the Occupy UC Davis movement and pepper spray incident that happened in the city I live. Maybe you heard about it on the news. My family in Wisconsin called the day after students were pepper sprayed and were surprised Davis made the national news. So, below is my proposal:

YouTube videos of the pepper spray incident shed light on campus police taking extreme measures to clear away non-violent protesters.

Education is very important to the citizens of the State of California. For a long time, tuition had been free or very inexpensive to residents of the state who were accepted at the University of California (UC) System. It is part of the California culture that low-cost higher education is a right and not a privilege. Within the past years due to a major budget crisis, the state has significantly increased tuition for its UC schools. A significant increase in tuition was one of the main reasons students have recently protested as part of the Occupy UC Davis movement.

While tuition increases have been protested in the past, the Occupy UC Davis movement has gained special attention due to social media. On November 18, campus police used pepper spray as self-defense on non-violent student demonstrators. The pepper spray incident was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube. The video went viral, and it gained national and international attention as the campus community and nation scrutinizes what went wrong. The incident even caught the attention of Jon Stewart, satirist and host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central who mocked the event on his show, stating there were better ways than pepper spray to get the attention of college students, like free tacos or Green Day in the quad.

College students are heavy social media users. Student protesters are heavily utilizing social media, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, creating wikis, and blogging. Social media gave them power to communicate what happened, and because of its viral nature, news of the event spread quickly to many people, including people across the country and across the globe. This is a paradigm shift in power from few distributing information to many, to many creating and distributing information. 

Campus administration and others with high authority roles on campus, including Chancellor Linda Katehi, do not implement social media the same way the students do. People like the chancellor have less time available to interface with social media and tend to rely on more traditional communication devices, including email, press releases, and websites. The chancellor’s staff assists her with communication duties, including sending and answering emails, facilitating her blog, and writing speeches. While Chancellor Katehi emailed the campus community after the pepper spray incident occurred, several hours had passed while her email statement made its way through the appropriate channels before it could be sent to all students, faculty and staff. While her email had an air of authority, the lag in time opened the opportunity for information from other sources to fill in the gaps of what happened. Timeliness of a message is important. Breaking the story first, whether completely accurate or not, is worth more now than it ever use to be due to social media.

There are positive and negative consequences of social media, including the speed and accuracy of the message. This includes accuracy of the message context. Other important issues include an increased participation and awareness, increased two-way interaction between sender and receiver, and an increased authority given to messages that appear online. By examining these issues, I hope to better understand social media’s role in the events that unfolded surrounding the Occupy UC Davis pepper spray incident.

 

The Final Paper is Only the Beginning!

Emerging Media Topic

Because these are my first final papers as a Graduate Student, I am a bit anxious.  Luckily, I have been able to nail down a good paper topic that I feel comfortable researching and presenting.  I will be doing my paper about:

Are iPads Suitable Substitutes for Manuals, Textbooks and Other Paper Documents in the Business and Educational World?

This topic will allow me to present information relating to how people in education and business have fared in the past utilizing paper documentation as well as present how iPads can make life easier.

I know people who like to redecorate. One of the ways they find inspiration is to use one picture, pillow, rug or piece of furniture and then design the room around this piece.  A similar opportunity afforded itself to me.  As I was researching a similar topic for another course, I came across an article by the Air Force:

Fontaine, S., & Blake Johnson, N. (2011, September 19). Table takeover. Air Force Times, pp. 18-20. In this article from the Air Force’s own publication a realistic review of the role of the iPad is presented. In early phases of testing, there is a very optimistic outlook for the iPad tablet as it is charged with being able to reduce costs and weight on flights. While the Air Force and other branches of our armed forces are beginning to utilize the iPad because of the need for added mobility, there are also concerns regarding security. These concerns are also identified.

 

Looking to the Future

While working on this one project is important, the process overall has been enlightening in many ways. The past two weeks have been spent in contemplation of what my (3) final projects will be about.  What started out as separate thought processes has coalesced into a realization that all that I do while here at UW Stout is of value farther down the line. 

As I was perusing topics on graduate studies on the internet, I stumbled across an article at the Dartmouth Writing Program website relating to Writing a Thesis. The information presented, though quite simple, is also very powerful. It de-mystified the process for me and urged me to begin “thinking” about how I want to finish.

To this end, I am designing a data base to house information relating to my time at UW Stout – more particularly to organize and add notations to articles, books, chapters, magazines and other print media (both on the internet and hard copy).  I really think that by doing a lot of reading, making a few notes here and there and being able to search and re-read, I can save an enormous amount of wasted time later on and have a much better understanding of my choices when the time comes.

Once I have a workable version, I would be happy to share it with anyone else that would like to use this as a tool.

Final 745 Paper: Technical Companies & Social Media

Hi everyone! I hope the last couple weeks of class are going well for all of you – we’re almost there!

I wanted to check in quick to mention my topic for the final paper. I plan to explore companies that sell technolgy-based products or services and their use of social media and related technologies within their business. Specifically, I’d like to look at blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.

To Email or Not To Email?

I found an interesting article here that talks about a French information technology company who is implementing a zero email policy where they don’t allow internal emails, but rather urge employees to use instant message and other networking tools.

Interesting! My thought is: if they’re still using other tools to communicate internally, will it really save time or is it just shifting that time to other communication methods?

Final Paper Topics

Just wondering what everyone else has been researching for their final project! I know personally the end of the semester crunch is starting to get to me, but I was interested in what everyone else in the class had chosen for their topic

I chose to research the question, “Has the advancement in communication technologies i.e. texting, social networking, email, skype, etc. made an overall positive or negative impact on our society?” There is so much information to sort through on this topic, which is great, but I’m finding myself sifting through a lot of opinion based articles rather than factual information. I think in some ways I may be able to utilize bits and pieces of the opinion based articles for supporting details, since the opinions are from members of our society. I will be interested to see what ends up to be my final product!

Good luck to everyone on their final papers, only a few weeks left of the semester! Break is almost here!

Is the Internet Considered Real World?

A little funny story about technology before I get started on my reaction to this week’s readings. My sister attends UW-Stout and her boyfriend lives in Minneapolis. They use Skype every night to talk to one another, however, the internet was out for 4 days at her boyfriend’s apartment and I got a text at 10 PM at night asking if he could come over to use our internet so he could Skype my sister. I told him sorry and that I was going to sleep and I found out the next day that they had actually gotten in a fight because “talking on the phone is not the same as Skype-ing” and he felt that they weren’t able to connect in the same way! It’s interesting to think that technology has hindered our ability to be flexible. It’s as if we’ve come to expect certain things from our technology and when it fails, we don’t know what to do! Just something interesting to think about!

Chapter 9

“As an ethnical frame of being in this world, it is not only natural to us, but also transparent and invisible.”

At the beginning of the chapter, Katz and Rhodes talk about whether or not it’s hypocritical to refers to their clients in a different way in internal or external communication. When I worked for Target as an assistant manager, they referred to their employees as “team members” and the customers as “guests.” Early on in the training process, I was actually corrected by an intern from corporate for using the incorrect terms. ha! My point is, Target used these terms internally and externally, which I appreciated for consistency, even if it did seem a little (okay, a LOT) like corporate fluff.

“…the virtual reality of media has become as real as, or more real to us than the tangible world” (p. 238). That’s a pretty bold statement that would be interesting to research. For me, I don’t think that’s the case at all. Granted, I don’t participate in too many forms of social networking and I’m far from being plugged in all the time (except for at work, when I stare at a computer screen for the majority of the day…blah!) and it would be interesting to know how many people do feel that way.

Katz and Rhodes talk about how the words and structure we use in email reveal our relationship with the person we’re sending the email to. For me, in the work place, this is very true. There are some co-workers I can write an email to in 10 seconds and not give it a second thought, while there are others, I have really think about how I structure sentences and word things, not to mention re-reading it over and over before I hit send, because of the nature of the subject and who it’s being sent to. Another factor that causes me to pause is the fact that emails are permanent to some degree, so what you type can be forwarded, printed and passed on, so if there’s something really sensitive, it’s sometimes best to pick up the phone or talk to someone face-to-face.

Week 12 | Ethics Versus Framed Value Systems

Digital technology is rapidly developing, and people are struggling to keep up with its rate of change and effect on society.  Katz and Rhodes have developed frames that define what levels people have adopted technology, but the authors are confusing ethics with value systems. The authors have failed to discuss the impact of digital communications in terms of what is ethical (good or bad), but instead discuss value systems in a range of frames that guide peoples’ behaviors (such as whether people adopt technology or not). Whether people adopt technology or not is not an ethical decision in itself. How people decide to use the technology deals with ethics.

Technology is not new. For instance, a fountain pen is technology, and it has been around for over a thousand years. Fountain pens replaced writing with quills. Fountain pens were replaced by typewriters, and typewriters were replaced by computers. A person cannot call a computer ethical or not ethical, just as they would not call a hammer ethical or unethical. Technology is not advancing itself. It is people behind it that are driving it. People who make a website may try to achieve certain results, like increase visitor traffic. A computer isn’t the means to this end, but the people behind it are.

The Katz and Rhodes article also misses the point of technology, which is to improve the quality life for humans. The introduction of digital technology has not changed ethics. Ethics is fundamentally the same. I agree with the authors that technology’s impact is greater than it was in the past (p. 231), but this does not necessarily change how we determine what is ethical. For example, if a student decides to cheat on an exam, is it any more or less ethical if the student cheats on the exam with a smartphone than with notes written on the palm of his hand? Both are ethically wrong. The only difference is one involves digital technology.

 

 

 

Spilka Chapter 9

I have to admit I was confused through much of Spilka chapter 9. As I read the six ethical frames Katz and Rhodes outlined I had a hard time trying to figure what some real-life ethical issues of that frame would be. Even when Katz and Rhodes gave examples I had a hard time figuring out what the ethical issue is. For example, in the means-end frame they say, “The primary ethical issue is whether the technical end justifies the technical means” (P. 234). Maybe I am stupid, but I don’t get it. I guess what they are saying is is the outcome of a new technology actually benefit the customer or does it hurt the customer? I guess because they allude that an end needs to be more then just technically advantageous, useful, or expedient.

I have an example from work that might fit into this category. A week or so ago my Vice President/Chief Information Officer decided she did not want to do her weekly e-newsletter that was sent to all of our staff anymore. Instead, she decided to start blogging and sharing information on Google+. By blogging and using Google+, my VP/CIO is saving time, but it she is hurting the rest of the organization because people are now responsible for actively seeking her announcements. In the past, they would have her announcements delivered right to them.

In addition, her newsletter always contained staff updates (e.g, who’s leaving now). Now, she wants us to post staff updates on Google+. I can see this as an ethical issue because staff updates should be private and Google+ by nature is not private because people can share posts with others.

Please Trust Me

Spilka, Chapter 9—E-mail in the workplace seems to mean different things to different people. I think e-mail is only as strong as a company allows it to be. It seems that some companies prefer to only use e-mail when you need to involve a group of people in the communication. At my company, we are supposed to use e-mail all the time. Even if I want to talk to the person that sits next to me, I’m supposed to e-mail them instead of talking to them face-to-face. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever been a part of.

I think the most important aspect when using e-mail is to remember that the person(s) you sent the e-mail to can also send that e-mail message to other people. I think this is why it is very important to be ethical and professional in all e-mail communications. The important thing that I’ve learned is that just because I authored and e-mail, it doesn’t mean that I own it and have control over who views it.

Privacy, Trust, and Disclosure—I thought this was a great article. I pretty much shop online whenever I can and if I don’t trust the company that I’m buying from, I will not purchase anything. I trust Ebay because they’ve always refunded my money when something has gone wrong with a different company that sold me an item through their Web site.

Trust

In August, I ordered some seat covers for my golf cart. The company that I bought them from through Ebay sent me the wrong items. I e-mailed the company to get my money back. The company wanted me to pay for the return shipping and then they would refund my money. I told the person that I was e-mailing that I didn’t trust them so I wasn’t going to pay for shipping with the hope that I would get all my money back. The company told me that I can trust them but I didn’t because trust takes a long time to develop in a relationship.

If you’re a company and selling things online, you need to make sure that people get what they expect. If customers are receiving what they expect then they will trust your company and buy more items from you in the future.

Week 12: Machines Me

The two subjects for this week’s readings – ethics and privacy – are some of the most controversial issues that digitally literate people have to deal with. Both readings kind of gave me the creeps. I chose to focus on Katz & Rhodes.

I found this reading to be both interesting and frustrating. I disagree with many of their ideas about the ethical frames of technical relations.

I do not believe in the false frame. The Platonic belief that technology only an “imitation of Knowledge” (p. 233), is not entirely accurate. Technology is the result of knowledge. As such, I do believe that technology fits in the tool frame, “as mechanisms and systems to help their users meet their work goals” (p.234). I can even buy into the means-end frame because it makes sense that technology can be used for “production and profits” and “meeting technical requirements of the technology” (p. 234).

As for the autonomous frame: just no. Their questions, “Have you ever noticed how some systems…are more adapted to themselves, more focused on their own efficiency than on the human being who is the ostensible…user?” (p.234). That argument completely dismisses the role of agency and volition. It’s not the computers that are focused on their own efficiency: it is the people who programmed the computers. Taking agency out of the question renders the argument invalid.

Thought frame is less ridiculous. We do use machines as external extensions of our memories, like phones and PDAs. People, admittedly, even have machines within themselves (pacemakers, hearing aids). However, at my work at least, we do not “…refer to people, things, and actions with words like information, function, connection, transmission, input, output, processing, short-term and long-term memory, and noise in the system…” (p. 236). These terms aren’t exclusive to digital technology. Every one of them existed before the advent of computers. Applying them to a new paradigm is fine, but their logic doesn’t work.

The being frame is a result of the preceding frames. Since many of those are fallacious, the being frame doesn’t hold a lot of water for me. I do believe that people are depersonalized and are often treated as “standing reserve,” but that concept is not acknowledged, nor is it easily proven.

One of the parts that was most interesting to me, and not entirely preposterous, is their proposal that our relationships with machines may go from an “I-It” relationship to an “I-You” relationship, which means that at some point we may refer to machines as other sentient, self-aware beings. I can see that happening if machines become more autonomous and are programmed with beliefs. I do not see this happening in our lifetime. The technology might be there, but acceptance of it is doubtful.

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Now for the fun part.

Background information: In my study of memes, I came across a team of folks (Autotune the News) who take daily news, autotune the speakers in the news clips, and set the fabricated “singing” to music.

They might be best known for setting to music the rant of Antoine Dodson, a citizen of Huntsville, Alabama, who was interviewed for a news story about someone breaking into his family’s apartment and attempting to assault his sister.

Autotune the news “songified” the incident:

The folks at Autotune the News have an app that lets you “songify” yourself. This week’s readings talked about how “humans and technology (often merged)” would have relationships with one another.

I decided to preempt this merging and created a song from a paragraph in our text. I read it into an iPad and here is the result. Yes, this is me “singing.” Lyrics are included if you want to sing along. Machine Me

Spilka, Chapter 9

I feel this chapter of Spilka specifically lays out the way we all will eventually have to develop a “persona” digitally which we will utilize as technical communication and social media advances. Much of the world has already begun this process by using social networking sites, such as Facebook.  Whether we realize it or not, each of us over time develops our “place” within the social networking site the same way we do or would in the real world. However, Spilka brings up a whole other side of the topic when she discusses the role of professionalism, ethics, and work appropriate personas and how they may be different than in the ‘real world’ due to the issue of efficiency. It is hard to be as professional or ethical on a computer screen as one would be in real life? Is this wrong? Or is it just a part of the persona we’ve developed with time and the use of efficient technology? The chapter gave me a lot to think about. Spilka also brings up the words “hypocrite” and “ethical standards violations,” which sound to me like huge professional personas are different online. What may be unacceptable face to face in a professional situation may be totally acceptable in an email, for instance, and visa versa.

What Will You Share Online?

Privacy has and I venture always will be a hot topic when dealing with the internet. If you are a Facebook fan, do you recall a recent post being circulated that indicated to look at the address bar while in Facebook? You were to determine whether your present location prefix was http or https.  The (s) at the end of http in the URL indicates the information shared is being done so via secure settings.  But, how many people really look for this and/or that telltale closed padlock that could also exist on the lower right of their browser?

Amazon.com is more trusted than a bank

I want to share with you an actual conversation that occurred in my Chiropractor’s office the other day.  I had my IPad out as usual while waiting and this usually creates a few questions. The conversation moved on to internet access and how people use the internet. The receptionist, who is approximately 60 years of age, made the statement that she doesn’t understand how anyone could use internet banking. To do financial transactions online is just too risky.  I asked her if she ever purchased anything online, and she responded that she did. She even added that the sites she goes to she “knows” are safe.  I asked her how she knows and she responded “I trust the companies”.

As we continued talking, I told her that I felt that the bank was much safer to deal with online because of a variety of issues:

• The banks are regulated and are mandated to make sure through multiple different strategies that our transactions are safe
• The banks already use the internet to do transactions themselves whether we partake or not
•  Banks have a larger stake in our safety than does any other random vendor online

What creates trust on the internet?

The interesting issue here is that even armed with this knowledge, she was not convinced that her bank was at least as safe as Amazon.  I wonder if this has to do with the advertising and global presence of companies like this as opposed to the businesslike demeanor of her local bank.  Or maybe it is the locality that used to instill trust, but now when it is coupled with the World Wide Web, presents an image of distrust – or, at least incompetence with new technology.

So now I begin to wonder.  I know many people who blurt out on Facebook personal information, when they will be out of town and the like, but are oblivious to the securities on the site. I also know many of these same people who will not utilize their bank’s online features because they are unsafe.  They have been using Facebook for 3 years but have been with their bank for 20.  What is up with this?  In addition, they will click randomly on links that cause malicious events on their computer (could even be installing keyloggers) then trot on down to Amazon.com or TigerDirect to make a purchase.

 I am not saying that these websites are not secure – I use them myself. I just do not understand the rational as to what is secure and what is not. And once again, I have posted more questions than answers!!

 In weeks past, we have discussed many elements of social interaction on the internet and one of these may, indeed be an indicator as to why people trust on the internet the way they do.  Facebook comes up again as a huge meeting place for people on the internet. People trust people.  When a person visits a social site each day or even each week and see others in their group trusting online businesses, they are much more likely to trust them also. In addition, just the presence of these businesses as advertisements on the social networking page can add to that trust factor.  Does the local bank advertise online? Probably not.

Image References:

http://www.unitedfcs.com/assets/images/secure_messaging_new.jpg

http://www.unitedfcs.com/assets/images/online_banking(2).jpg

Technical Communication for Emerging Media – Global Edition

Both the readings by Spilka and Ishii were eye-opening to me and went quite far to validate the fact that we see the world through our own eyes.  Up until this time, I had been considering emerging media in general as an American artifact, when there is no question this has to be taken as a global event.

This is not to say that each country or culture has an obscure view of media relations. In fact, there are many similarities. Ishii’s references to Japanese youth when she says “there has been a trend for young people to create their own unique subcultures in which they communicate predominately through SMS…” (Ishii, p 346) is a compelling likeness to what has been happening in the United States during the same timeframe.  What is different, as she indicated through research findings, is that Japanese young people are more introverted and this leads to a greater tendency to use text messages over face-to-face conversations or even telephone.

These global differences continue on in Spilka’s writings. These references to the ways that other countries conduct business hit very close to home for me.  I work for a company, Energy Control Systems, which has both a National and International presence. The international side includes a few salespeople in countries such as Asia, South America, Central America, Mexico, South Africa and others.  Their main product is Sinetamer, a line of surge suppression equipment that is quite useful in these countries. The main impetus to our overseas sales; however, is the owner of our company.  I always thought that he traveled 75% of the time because he liked it. Now I realize that there is more to it than that.  Without his ability to meet face-to-face with contacts in these countries, we would have a lot less international business.  I now have a much better picture of not only what my company does, but of my own responsibilities when I have opportunities to sell overseas.

It seems that culture is a much bigger issue today, than language is.  When I was just out of High School, the biggest issues for college admittance was having so many credits of a foreign language. Today, most colleges no longer have these requirements. It makes me think that culture is, indeed, a more prevalent issue.  It is interesting how my thoughts keep coming back to culture.

 

Week 11 | Consider Cultural Differences for Social Media

The use of social media sites are exploding across the globe.

I enjoyed Thatcher’s Understanding Digital Literacy Across Cultures. He laid the chapter out well, first defining digital literacy (“accessing, understanding, and appropriately using in specific communication situations”) and ethnocentrism (assuming that another culture will use digital media the same as your own), p. 169. He then presented an excellent example where he had to make adjustments in an email that was presented to two different cultures in the U.S. and Mexico. He then discussed the background for understanding how digital literacy relates to cultural conventions (through I/Other, Norms/Rules, and Public/Private degree of involvement). Lastly, he discussed how technical communicators can make adjustments to communication practices for other cultures through five strategies (determining the purpose of the communication, determining the audience, determining the information needs, determining organization strategies, and determining style preferences. Thatcher illustrates his strategies for transforming the Texas Tech University homepage into something that would be more suitable to an audience from Mexico.

Thatcher’s email and website examples are very thorough, and I agree that technical communicators should adapt their digital communication to account for cross-cultural differences. How, though, can technical communicators adapt digital communications for social media, and do these strategies apply?

One company’s blog, Global Partners International Translation Blog states that marketers must localize content for different cultures. Communication through social media in other cultures means determining what local social media networks to use, what languages to use, what topics are trending, and information about the culture. I think this is only the starting point because as the use of popular social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are exploding worldwide, technical communicators should realize that using social media effectively means more than just knowing which medium to use or translating words into another language. I think that Thatcher’s strategies apply to social media. Let’s say Coca Cola wants to have a presence on China’s most popular social media network. The company would have to think about its purpose, audience information needs, style preferences, and maybe to a lesser degree its organization strategies (as social media sites tend to have already set structures).

Forget the Technology: Rules of Audiences Still Apply

Spilka chapters 7 and 8 annoyed me. I’m sorry I am not afraid of the big bad digital age. In chapter 8, Blakslee (2010) says, ” one speculation is that audiences of digital documents may be different from those of print documents” (P. 200). My response is so what what if they are? Anything you write as a technical communicator you should be analyzing the audience. It doesn’t matter if a digital audience is different. If they are your audience, you should write for them. Blakesee (2010) goes on to say, “the Internet ‘may blow apart the entire notion of a selective audience’ because of its broad, and even limitless, distribution potential” (P. 201). That’s a bunch of bunk. Just because something is available on the Internet to the entire world doesn’t mean the entire world is going to view it. There are still selective audiences on the Web. People view what they are interested in. They don’t just view stuff because it is there.

Even when you write something for the web you have intended audiences even though it is available to everyone in the world. For example, all of the web content that I write is for consumption by people at the University of Minnesota. Anyone in the world can read it, but it is not for them. I use language the people at the U of M will understand. The other people that consume the content are not even a secondary audience. They are nothing. They are simpler there. They  should understand from looking at the content that the information is not for them.

It’s just my opinion, but I believe that technology only complicates communication if you fear it.

Cross-Culture Digital Literacy

Thatcher stated that technical communicators should possess 4 competencies when dealing with intercultural digital literacy:

• Understand the rhetorical characteristics of the digital medium itself
• Match those characteristics to the demand, constraints, purposes, and audience expectations of the situation in their culture
• Assess how the situation varies in the target culture
• Adapt their communication strategies to the different rhetorical expectations for the target culture

These are great guidelines when it comes to establishing a seamless transaction between two cultures. While I haven’t worked on a cross-cultural project, I can only imagine that executing the guidelines is difficult on a completely different level. I would think that you wouldn’t realize all the challenges of creating a common digital literacy between two cultures until you’re eyeball deep in the process. Yes, doing your homework could help create a better experience for both cultures on the front end, but I think it would be difficult to fully understand all the issues a particular culture encounters if you’re not a part of the culture itself. Does anyone have experience working with two different cultures? What were some of the challenges you faced?

I thought Thatcher’s case study with the EPA project was helpful in understanding some of the obstacles technical communicators face when working on cross-cultural projects. I can understand why they didn’t get the anticipated level of participation from their Mexican counter-parts (Especially the closing statement in the translated email that reads “I am at your orders.”).

Week 11: Choose Your Own Adventure

Week 11 Reading Response

I focused this week on the Blakeslee reading in the Spilka book. The idea of writing for audiences in the digital age is what this class is all about, so it really made sense to me as a topic for exploration. Two ideas came through for me: the idea of audience reading choice, and the concept of knowing your reader.

Reader Choice

At the outset Blakeslee states, “We have yet to re examine the notion of audience to determine if anything is changing or needs to change in response to the field’s shift to digital communication” (p. 200). This, I think, is a valid argument. Text documents and digital documents are sofundamentally different, that it’s hard to imagine it not having an impact.

One of the ideas that struck me as I was reading this was that, as readers use digital texts, they “become participants, control outcomes, and shape the text itself” (p. 215). She quotes Landow’s argument that, “the nonlinear nature of hypertext empowers the reader, whose choices make a uniquetext” (p.215).

The reason it stuck out to me is because it reminded me of a book fad that existed during the 80s. Choose your own adventure stories were books where you read the story up to a certain point, and then you got to a pivotal part of the story where you had make a choice. After choosing you would flip to the page that would continue your story, depending on the choice you made. I don’t remember how many endings they would have, but I would re-read those books over and over to follow all the paths.

Blakeslee’s discussion of hypertexts reminded me of that genre, and made me realize how pretty much hyperlinks are “choose your own adventure” stories times about a billion. Comparing it to a little, 150 page book made me realize, again, how mind-blowing the internet is with all its anticipatory hyperlinking, banner ads, and sidebar ads.

Knowing Your Reader

That anticipation of reader needs is another thing that provoked a lot of thought. One of the most fitting quotes was, “You don’t know what you don’t know” (p.208).  Anticipating reader needs can be very difficult, especially if you aren’t able to have direct contact with that audience. One of Blakeslee’s participants reaffirms the idea that, “One of my first concerns about an audience is that no one knows who it is. That’s an impossible situation to be in. We need to get somebody at the client, a stakeholder, to agree who the audiences are” (p.210). It is crucial to know and agree upon who these people are in order to tailor a useful message. She makes a good point, but the same was true with print.

Although she admits that much work needs to be done, she asserts that that writers need to take as much care identifying their digital audiences as they did learning about their print audiences. She advocates the idea of creating personas to obtain, “the kind of nformation about readers that writers are seeking” (p. 207). She also discusses, “interaction, especially with actual readers” (p. 208), so the writer can get an idea of user background, context of use, and perceived user needs.

I am glad that she discussed the fact that not every writer has the choice to meet their readers. In my experience, I’ve had it both ways. At the travel company where I worked I spoke with customers all the time. I even went on familiarization trips with actual customers. In the other job at a continuing education company for attorneys, I never even met one of our customers. I feel that I delivered better copy at the travel company because I met and made friendships with some of our “personas.”

It’s been a rough week, so this is all I have for creative this time around:

 

E-mail–Yes Please

Spilka, Chapters 7—The way Spilka talked about how e-mail worked great in some situations but not so great with “delicate interpersonal communications” is totally true.

At my old job, e-mail was the communication of choice. Everyone used e-mail because it would track your conversation and people could view the content of the e-mail anytime of the day or night. The problem with e-mail was when you would get into an argument with a coworker.

I had a coworker that lived in Indianapolis, Indiana and I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My coworker showed a customer a confidential drawing that I was going to use in an instruction. The problem was the drawing wasn’t approved and it was going to change. I e-mailed the drawing to my coworker because he wanted to see it so he could get an idea of what was going on. My coworker then e-mailed the drawing to a customer in California to show the customer what was going on. When I found out that the customer had the unapproved drawing, I e-mailed my coworker and told him to call me. He e-mailed me back and told me that he didn’t have time to talk on a phone. The problem was this situation was a delicate interpersonal issue where e-mail would not meet my communication objective because my coworker needed to understand that what he did was completely wrong. After I finally talked to him on the phone, things got figured out and everything was okay in the end.

Spilka, Chapter 8—Writing for cyberspace is always challenging and I think Spilka covered that point. The main thing that kept jumping out to me is when you write anything (paper or digital), you always, always always always have to ask yourself two questions—who is my audience and what is the purpose. When you know the answers to both those questions, you are more likely going to write something that actually communicates with your audience.

A final question: Can someone tell me where the “Ishii, K. (2006).  “Implications of Mobility: The Uses of Personal Communication Media in Everyday Life.” Journal of Communication. 56.2, 346-365” reading is located? I checked all the books and D2L but I couldn’t find it.

Photo found at: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=e-mail&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1280&bih=702&tbm=isch&tbnid=nhJ6lnxYlZ4MQM:&imgrefurl=http://ohinternet.com/E-mail&docid=kWhEyKUxI3JS4M&imgurl=http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/f/f5/E_mail.jpg&w=300&h=336&ei=mQ7ATrScGouEtgeviN21Bg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=877&vpy=135&dur=1194&hovh=238&hovw=212&tx=157&ty=145&sig=110374838443503213469&page=1&tbnh=154&tbnw=138&start=0&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0

Spilka, Chapters 7 & 8

The section of chapter 8 in Spilka that I found most applicable to my life would be the area where obtaining and responding to reader feedback is discussed. The chapter pertains to addressing an audience in a digital age, and since we rarely reach our audiences via face to face interaction, it is important for us to find new ways to offer and receive input on our writings and research. In my job, we provide and sell hearing aids to hearing impaired individuals. With each hearing aid comes an instruction manual written by the manufacturer. Since the majority of our patients are elderly or physically disabled, the instruction manuals can be quite daunting and hard to understand as well as utilize with their hearing devices. For Audiologists, the manuals seem basic and easy to use, however, they also are highly educated in the area to begin with. In this way, the manufacturers who write, edit, and print these instruction manuals did not consider their audience. Yes audiologists and experienced professionals can interpret the information, but the users, for the most part, cannot. Due to this lack of patient understanding, the majority of the time the patients end up calling us with questions or else they make an appointment to address the issues they are having with their hearing aids. The technology used within our practice is so advanced, and yet the patients are usually intimidated by the technology and feel inferior to it. It is ironic since by purchasing hearing aids the patient is basically buying a set of computers for their ears! I often wonder if we were able to have some say in how the manuals are written and published if our patients would be less intimidated by the technology and thus feel more comfortable with it, meaning less follow up appointments and frustrated patients. I guess it goes to show that technology and the “digital age” can be both a blessing and a curse.

Social Media and Aps

Please bear with me as I post this. I am using a WordPress ap on my IPad and unfortunately it is a bit clunky. Over the last week, I have tried to find a way to view more than only my own posts, but alas I have yet to figure that out. So far, this ap only allows me to see and edit my own posts. It seems to be an interface for posting alone.

To this end, it is quite elementary at best for even posting, but I am tenacious – I will see how this works out.

As my topic suggests, this is about more than just WordPress. Tonight, as I was checking out some Twitter posts, I came across a tweet that did more for me than any other since I started stalking the Twitterverse.

http://stumpteacher.blogspot.com/2011/01/twitter-102.html

The above link is a must-see for any aspiring Twitter-er? Tweetster? Oh heck, you get the picture. Unfortunately, his reference to an IPad ap (TweetDeck) is a bit premature – there is only a workable ap for the iphone. But, never fear, I plan on testing it out on my laptop.

Oh yea, I suppose I need to take a picture to test this ap and post it here. Let me see if there is a photo option….. alas there is not, but that is all the better because I look like hell right now.

Wait, I found it – here is a picture of my puppy, Spaz. She is sitting here waiting to watch the #DWTS result show – OOPS, I mean Dancing with the Stars.

Well, for some reason,I am having trouble now seeing what I type because the program will not scroll. In the end, I think this ap needs a bit of work!

One last thing, are we allowed to link our posts here to twitter if we want to share them?

interfere with the interface

Heidi’s geek rap reminded me of this TED talk. I would have left the link as a comment there, but figured I should keep up with the vivid posts we’ve got going on!

alone together etiquette

Ever since I read Alone Together last Spring, my husband and I use Turkle’s book title to describe moments like these, especially when we’re out to eat and I’m tweeting or texting someone.

A friend of mine posted this image on Facebook with the caption, “For my bosses at work.” He works at a management consulting firm, not on a laptop campus like I do, but this led me to wonder about a committee meeting I was at a few weeks ago.

Instead of printing out documents or carrying my laptop with me, I only brought my iPhone and accessed the documents from it. While there were plenty of people at the meeting with laptops and iPads, I felt self-concious after a few minutes because I wondered if people thought I was texting or checking Facebook. For this reason, I made consistent eye contact with whomever was speaking and also kept my iPhone screen visible to anyone near me so they knew I was only looking at meeting-related documents.

Who knows, perhaps no one even noticed, but as the youngest and newest person on this committee, I had to wonder what people might be thinking. What would you have thought about a person reading from his/her phone? Do you work in places where the laptop or Ipad might be more accepted at a meeting than an iPhone or Blackberry? Or does it even matter since we know what Smartphones are capable of these days?

Week 10 | LinkedIn – Social Media for the Career Minded

How people shared their resumes before LinkedIn

Qualman, Chapter 10 could be entitled “All the Things Leftover that I Wanted in My Book, but Could Not Find Places for in Other Chapters, and I Really Want to Be Credited with Naming the Glass House Generation.” The subject matter in Chapter 10 jumped around. From being snarky and calling flight attendants exasperated stewardesses who don’t know what to do when their box lunches run out (p. 219) to stating that young people have declining oral communication skills without presenting substantial evidence that this is true—only an anecdote about two people who met in the virtual world of Second Life. The two had issues, but the story does not say whether the couple’s issues were due to a lack of communication skills.

The last part of the chapter was more cohesive. Qualman discussed social media’s role in job hunting. I agree that the middlemen of the job recruitment process will not go away. Online job boards and fairs will continue to help connect potential employees with employers. People also will still look to professional organization job boards and the employer itself, but career social media like LinkedIn is exclusive to helping employers and job seekers connect with each other. In the end, I believe that companies make the final hiring call during an interview, but LinkedIn is a great place to get a foot in the door and make a good first impression.

LinkedIn is useful for networking. LinkedIn helped me find contact information for my company’s database and Christmas card list. In a few weeks, my company will be sending our Christmas cards out to our clients. One of our clients left one organization for another. While the old and new organizations had not yet updated their websites, the client had updated her public LinkedIn profile. I was able to figure out where she was currently employed so we can send her a Christmas card.

 

Careful What You Post/Like

I want to focus this post on a key point in Qualman chapter 8 because it applies to something I heard on the radio today. Qualman (2009) said, “Search engine results and the traditional Internet advertising model are antiquated–social media will push both of these to revolutionize otherwise they will see a dramatic decrease in market share” (P.237). On the radio today I heard that Google will start indexing people’s Facebook posts. There is a story about it here: http://www.9news.com/news/article/228052/188/Facebook-comments-to-appear-in-Google-searches

 

It is kind of scary for Facebook users that people may have the ability to find your Facebook posts with a Google search. Of course, if you you have your privacy settings set right, it will never be a problem.

It makes perfect sense for Google to make the move to indexing Facebook posts. Google wants their search results to be up-to-the-second accurate, and people’s Facebook posts are as current as it gets.

Advertising through Niche Market Bloggers

While reading Chapter 8 in Socialnomics, they talked about the paid-for-search programs they had in place. It was great to learn about how those function and actually put cash back into the consumers pockets because I’ve heard about them before but never really understood the mechanics.  The same principal applies on advertising on blogs – blog owners get paid based on blog reader clicks.

From what I understand, bloggers often sign up with a company that provides the advertising that the author, in turn, posts on their blog. I know there have been blogs that have been scolded by their readers because their ads are for controversial companies or companies that are known to support controversial causes.

Additionally, and I see this more often (I follow a lot of blogs!), companies often get out information about their products or services through blogs. I think it’s great that companies are so in touch with their customer base that they know the blogs that reach their wider customer base. And people who read the blogs trust the author on the subject their speaking on, so if they give an honest, positive review, there’s a greater chance that those who read the blog will view the product the same way.

For example, one of the blogs I read on a regular basis is Clean Eating Chelsea (www.cleaneatingchelsea.com) and she regularly reviews products sent to her by food companies. She takes posts beautiful, sharp photographs of the food she’s sent and honestly reviews it. It costs the company the cost of the product and the cost of shipping but that more than makes up for it with a positive review that’s basically “free” advertising. Sometimes the company will send additional products to the blogger to offer to their readers in the form of a giveaway. It’s an extremely cleaver, inexpensive way for companies to reach a particular market.

Here is one of her reviews on coconut oil:

Source: www.cleaneatingchelsea.com

Week 10 Readings: Human + Machine

The Longo reading from the Spilka book was interesting, even though the article was all over the place. She makes several statements about the genuineness of computer mediated interaction:

Virtual communities encourage simulated social interactions that lead to simulated human connections” (p. 148).

Those of us who inhabit digital worlds often claim that virtual communities are like “real” communities or are even better than “real communities, reassuring ourselves that a virtual life is OK, that it is not detrimental to “real” life (p. 155).

As people become more removed from one another in the physical world, we assure ourselves that the technological revolution enabling this alienation facilitates an idealized community, while also dismantling our physical community. This assertion comforts us, because we come to believe that an online virtual world such as Second Life is just like “real” life and is, therefore, OK (p. 156).

These statements just really set me off. I think it is because of the “normal-centrism” of her statements. Both Long and Turkle are criticizing a milieu that attracts people who are often marginalized within their physical communities. People who like games like Second Life, World of Warcraft and other online games are considered “geeky” or “nerdy.” They are either shy or have been teased into isolation or otherwise rejected by others. Now that a different environment has been created where they can thrive, scholars are trying to assert that what they are doing is somehow wrong. Longo asks, “Can virtual social connections established within a human + machine culture satisfy our human need to connect with other people?” (p. 148). If that’s the only kind of interaction wherein these people have been successful, I say, YES!

One of the sources she quotes says “…to “simulate is to feign to have what one hasn’t,” and “simulation threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false,’ between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’”(Baudrillard p. 167-168). If the choice is to continue to try and insert yourself into a physical social construct that rejects you over and over again versus thriving in an environment where people accept you, most people are going to choose acceptance over rejection.

One of the silly things about this argument is the fact that nobody gets their pants in a bunch when people talk on a home phone. That’s machine-mediated communication, and it is so unsophisticated as to only let you talk to one person at a time. Why aren’t scholars freaking out about telephone calls? They’re studying cell phone use, but why not the cordless we carry all over our homes?

The geeks finally have someplace to be. Like it or not.

Here’s my creative bit for this week. It’s a rap about geeks, to the tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which you can listen to before reading the rap to yourself.

Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I like to take a minute: just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I kill a dragon in its lair.

Now out in a suburb born and raised
I was a chubby kid with a funny old face
Kinda getting’ teased when I’m going to school
By the jocks and the greasers who thought they were cool
When a couple of guys who were up to no good
Startin making trouble in my neighborhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
She said ‘You’re playin’ in the basement, now stay down there.”

I begged and pleaded with her day after day
But she bought me a computer and some games to play.
She gave me a keyboard and then she gave me my mouse.
I put my headphones since I was stuck in the house.

World of Warcraft, yo this is bad
Drinking potions out of a round flask.

Is this what the people of Azeroth living like?
Hmmmmm this might be alright.

I joined up in a guild and we had no fear
The monsters said “RAAAR” and we put it in gear
If anything I can say the treasure was rare
Told my guildies – “To the big boss, we’re just about there.”

I pulled up to the dragon cave at 7 or 8
And I yelled to the my guildies “Yo homies this is fate”
I looked at the dragon
We were finally there
I was having an adventure sittin’ right in my chair.

Addendum: I found this yesterday on the internet:

 

PPS. For some reason I thought the creative tag meant I should separate it. Don’t know where I got that idea from but I put it back together with its original post and just clicked the “creative” category. DERP!

Electronic Cultures

 As I contemplate the concept of culture, more specifically cultures in an electronic sense, I find that there are some elements that do not necessarily jibe with main-stream cultural ideas. Online or electronic cultures seem to be a bit more malleable. The members of these cultural communities tend to fade in and out and change much more easily than members of a culture rooted in long-term traditions.  As I thought about this, it seems to me that the reasons could be attributed to the internet itself. As a medium of expression and communication, the internet is a virtual (no pun intended) infant. If this is the case, then how can a culture even exist? Wouldn’t you consider a culture to be something of a more static and solid nature?  Because the traditional connotation of culture conjures images of generations of members who have developed traditions and morals over a period of time, how can the internet produce cultures of its own in such a short period of time?

I would venture to say that the internet has not produced culture.

Culture has been uncovered and nurtured through this device; however, the internet is just this – a portal to view people through and bring them together.  Because you can boot up, log in and figuratively “step through” the portal to a new land, a room full of friends or even the halls of an institution, I see the internet not as the culture, but as a venue for people of similar interests to come together and be recognized.

I have belonged to many cultural societies over the course of my time perusing the internet. What I find interesting is that these societies are not new to my being; they are merely doorways that I step through to do something that I am already inclined to be a part of. I play games (World of Warcraft, Asheron’s Call and others), go to school, and talk about family and other interests that are mere extensions of me, not new me’s.  This is what I mean: The internet did not make me play games; I already played similar games with my family on Nintendo. The internet did not make me learn to cook, sew, bead or do other crafts – it was merely a tool to help me learn.  I could have gotten a book or asked someone or joined a local club for this type of support.  The internet did not make me go to UW Stout; I could have gone to the University in person if I had to.  Facebook was not necessarily for me to speak to my family and friends. If these activities create what someone would call a new culture, then I believe the term needs to be re-thought.

Bernadette Longo makes some great references to online communities in her article: Human + Machine Culture.  Here she refers to the differences between the way non-electronic communities and the universal community that can occur online.  I believe that her reference to the impossibility of a universal community is something I very much agree with. In mainstream communities, there are those that are included and others that are left out.  While this may seem to happen online, (maybe through a facebook page that friends and unfriends), this is but a small aspect of the larger whole.  But what I think is more interesting than this is the commitment that is lacking online. People hope from site to site, and literally take a bit from here and a bit from there but really do not have to commit to anything on the internet. Yes, in our courses we are making commitments; however, can the instructor really holler to you as you leave class and hold you back?  Even an email request can go ignored and later some electronic glitch of an excuse can be noted.

This is actually a first post this week.  As I was reading about culture in Spilka, I just could not resist “sounding off” about the concept of culture.  I also want to post about  LinkedIn as well because this is an amazing resource that I am still getting used to. One of the questions I want to ask is: Should I pay for the full service?

LinkedIn, Social Media, and Search Engines–They All Work Together

Using LinkedIn to Get Work: This article seemed pretty basic. I think it’s pretty obvious to keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date if you are looking for work. The thing I didn’t like was when the authors said to link to your Twitter account. My problem with that is Twitter is more of a personal account. If you link to it, your showing everyone who you follow and what you post. I think it discloses too much personal information to a potential employer. I think it’s a bad idea to link to anything where you use an online avatar instead of your real name. I don’t see that as being professional.

The other thing I didn’t like is posting about looking for work. I think that posting about looking for work can help you find a job, but it can also let people know that you’re trying to get out of your current position. If you post something that says you want to leave your currently company, there probably is a good chance that someone at your current company or someone your “LinkedIn” with will know one of your coworkers and tell them that you’re looking for a new job.

When I’m looking for a job, I never tell anyone at my work until after I get the new job. I thinks it’s a bad idea to make a new job search public because the odds are pretty good that someone you don’t want to know about your job search is going to find out.

Spilka, Chapter 6: On page 160, Spilka says, “If, as technical communicators, we make decisions based only on our understanding and not of the cultural contexts in which these activities are embedded, we run the risk of proposing documents and systems that do not fit well with the organization where we work and our goals for the future.” Truer words have never been spoken.

At my company, they wanted to create a new Web site for our customers. The company had the IT department take charge with the design and how information is loaded into it. The problem is the IT department doesn’t fill the site with content so they don’t know how any other part of the company operates. Basically, the IT people made a site that is almost impossible to use because they never asked any other departments about features they would like to see on the site.

Now the company has too much money into the site and it’s too late to start over. We’re stuck with a site that is horrible to use and horrible to load with content. It’s pretty embarrassing.

* I wanted to share a link to our new/bad Web site but it’s not live yet.

Qualman, Chapter 8: I think if search engines had a feature where users could search “real-time,” it would change the way people search the Web forever. The thing is I think that a real-time search feature would basically bring the users to social media sites rather than Web sites.

I’m not sure how it would work or how you would set it up, but I think the idea is pretty interesting and it will happen sometime in the near future. Qualman said that search engine companies are working on it right now, so hopefully we’ll see it soon.

Here’s a site that is pretty interesting: http://www.socialmention.com/#

Don’t allow technology to complicate things!

I apologize for getting my post up so late! Apparently I was in la-la land this weekend and it completely slipped my mind.

In Chapter 4: Information Design, the sentence “…knowing not just how to do things with technology, but also why and when actions needs to take place” grabbed my attention right away. One piece of technology that the non-profit organization that I volunteer at has started using recently is QR codes.

Here is an example of a QR code:

 

For those of you who don’t know how these work, you’re able to create these QR codes online by using a QR Code generator, which allows you to link a web address to a QR code. From there, many companies add it to their marketing material because when they’re scanned by a smart phone (with the proper app), it brings you to that designated web site.

The organization I mentioned earlier thought this would be a great way to get the word out about their mission and proceeded to plaster these on promotional t-shirts. Great idea in theory, right? Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they couldn’t be scanned on these t-shirts and the failed to include a web address apart from the QR code that people could go to as an alternative.

This idea really drive the points Salvo and Rosinski make about information design. While companies often want their customers to view them as tech-savvy  and ahead of the curve, it’s really important to be thoughtful in how we approach a situation.

Front-end Strategy

You want the findability to be easy to navigate, so it’s important to work through front-end strategy (site maps, wire frames). I’m a huge fan of mapping out projects before digging into them and realizing you only have half the information you need. I think site maps are a fantastic way to get everyone involved on the same page.

Qualman, chapter 8

In chapter 8, Qualman warns to never “build your own Field of Nightmares by building or replicating a social network for your company.” I found this quote particularly interesting since the audiology practice where I work utilizes both a major social media tool, Facebook, as well as a company based site run by our 3rd party investors. Our 3rd party investors created a site called “The CEO” that only members can access. The site works a lot like Facebook, where there is a chat and message feature, as well as a wall to post on and personal pages. I feel in some ways Qualman is right, but not in others. I think if a company were to create a social media site for the public, it would fail because it would only cater to a fairly small population. However, for our practice, CEO is an excellent way for us to connect with other practices and audiologists in our field since it is strictly limited to those who are a part of the organization. Since the site is based around a network of practices all endorsed by the same company, we have so much to gain from one another.

Week 9 | Information Design & Content Management

Improving Information Design & Content Management Capabilities through Our Class Blog

I am having a hard time coming up with the main point of this week’s readings, but I realize I don’t have to have all the answers. Sharing ideas and learning is what the blog is for. Writing my blog post and reading other posts will help me understand the material better.

Our class blog hasn’t replaced our need for D2L, but the blog is a great improvement in the ways students in the class share information. D2L is necessary for uploading and downloading information, retrieving comments and grades, and other administrative tasks. In the D2L discussion board and our blog, content, namely written word is most important. Beyond words, the blog blows the discussion board out of the water.

I am enjoyed reading about the lexicon relating to information design (Spilka, p 109), and how these concepts help people understand and utilize information better. I could relate the lexicon to many things I do at my job – like; how will Dave Smith retrieve and utilize a document I send him? Or, what should the template for a proposal work with the text? I could also relate the lexicon to our blog.

In the blog, I have control over the formatting, fonts, pictures, headings, embedded media, and links. Tools for mapping and navigation are okay (I think it could be a little better). If I want to read all of Heidi’s or Robin’s posts, I can click on their names. I can look in the archives by month, or just scroll by date. I wish we could separate the posts by week a little better. I’ve noticed we can see when the most views of the blog. There are taxonomy (tagging and categorical assignment) capabilities. The blog just seems like a better learning and sharing environment than D2L.

Giving More Credit to Early Websites

I would give more credit to designers of early websites (Spilka, p 106). While early websites were rudimentary compared to websites of today, like any new thing, websites in the late 1990s were in their infancy. When websites were being created for the first time, people did not know how to best make a website—optimized for readability and usability. Before websites, a standard format was an 8.5×11 portrait-orientated piece of paper. People knew how to design for that. I compare this to the invention of cars—how long had cars been invented before people decided to run tests for safety or optimal performance?

Making Sense of the Digital Landfill

I’m still trying to make sense out of the Digital Landfill website. Are we specifically to look at January 28, 2011? In addition, the PowerPoint was okay, but it seems like it only half makes sense without the speaker (even though we have his notes).

 

We Gain Nothing If We Lose Our Humanity By Utilizing Technology.

The Rise and Fall of a Company

The evolution from dependence on IT to an overflow of unemployed IT professionals (along with the rest of the company) is something I can relate to.  The company my husband used to work for grew at an astounding rate in the 90’s. In fact, they would hire 20-30 temps each week and as long as they worked out, by end of 30 days, they would be on the permanent payroll. Here is a picture of how fast this company grew: (numbers are estimated)

They needed an entire infrastructure to link the hundreds of employees that worked full time in house as well as programming to handle sales, service and manufacturing. The IT professional was GOD!

The company began their rise to fame, so to speak, with a modest 12 employees, and as you can see by the general timetable above, they were gobbled up and thrown to the wind with little effort.  Six months after this company was bought out, there were 100 scattered employees who were systematically absorbed or let go. The facility is now a ghost town. What used to be miles of corridors marked like streets of a small town is now a molding mess of stagnant air. Because this all occurred in a very small town, the implications for the residents were amazing.

This  company was a pioneer in a field that was very technical and highly in demand, their own need for technology was tremendous. During their hay day, there was an army of IT professionals, miles of coax cable which was then replaced by Cat5 cables connecting a network of computers. An intranet for the entire company with submissions by the departments and a large security force was in evidence.

That was then – This is now

So, why did this company sell out?  There are many thoughts on the subject, but one of them is that the owners were old-school and could not understand the value of the internet. After their rocket rise, they began to falter and lose ground in the industry. They felt that their level of technology should be enough and to spend more on IT functions was frivolous – they were very wrong.

What they were not wrong about is the time it takes to take good care of the customer.  When the new company took over, there was no question that the concern was for the bottom line.  Special programs were designed to track time on call or bring about data to analyze the total amount of cost per intervention on average.  The same technology that was supposed to make life easier for the employee and customer was now being used to squeeze every moment out of every day and pack as much profit into every second. 

As our reading “A Sea Change in Enterprise IT” illustrates (AIIM P. 5), there is a definite evolution of content and I am not sure it is totally for the good.

What I don’t get

I understand that our technology is changing so fast that it is difficult for the professionals to keep up, much less the business people who will be using it.  I also understand that profits, especially in these economic times, are a high concern for businesses.

What I do not understand is how companies can utilize more technology to cut out the personal touch that customer service used to provide, but then use our personal social networking interactions to get into our pockets.  This seems to be like burning a candle at both ends.

I do not agree with the AIIM white paper when it claims that B2C will “use social media to extend and IMPROVE customer service” (AIIM p. 8).  Customer service SUCKS in our country and further automization will only erode what little confidence we have in customer service centers. I do not understand how talking to a computer will be any better than talking to someone who hardly speaks English. 

We definitely need to foster advancements, but I fear that we are replacing humanity with technology all too much.

IMAGE CREDITS:

http://www.communication-type.com/technology-and-human-communication/

Working with Large Writing Groups

How do you get a large group of people to write well together? This is challenge that my company faces everyday. I’m going to focus this post on Chapter 5, Content Management—Beyond Single Sourcing, by William Hart-Davidson because this chapter opened my eyes to the question of large groups writing together.

On page 141, Hart-Davidson says, “…if their expertise is used properly, technical communicators can help organizations avoid the pitfalls and prosper.” I think this statement sums up everything I’ve noticed since I’ve been out of college and in industry. A lot of companies don’t understand the value with having a technical communicator in the organization.

I think if you’re going to have a company with a content group, you need to have a couple of technical communicators involved because they tend to understand the usability that content management needs to have and they also understand what a quality document is versus a document that isn’t too necessary for the organization.

It’s weird because I used to work for a company where there were only two writers in the entire organization. My coworker and I created everything. It was nice because we didn’t have too many other people sticking their noses into the details of our content. Now I work for a company where there are 40 people creating content together for the same audience. It’s completely different than what I’m used to.

Working with 40 other writers/designers/photographers is super challenging because everyone wants something different with the document. The writer wants good content. The designer wants a nice looking page. The photographer wants certain images to be a certain size on a page. A lot of my time is spent trying to convince people that the content I create needs to be on the page.

My biggest problem with my job is that the three managers (one for each group) only understand the one aspect that he or she is in-charge of. I’m 100 percent confident that if my company put a technical communicator in-charge of all three groups, everything would get done and the quality of the documents would improve because a technical communicator understands how writing, designing, and photography work together to make a page.

The managers at my company are too old-school and they don’t listen to suggestions. I’ve told my boss that I have a lot more skills (e.g. design and understanding CMS) and they just don’t want to hear it. I think my bosses need to be educated about the field of Tech. Comm. The problem is it’s challenging to educate people that don’t want to listen.

Here’s a link to the Adobe Tech. Comm. team: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/tag/adobe

They use a blog which I think is pretty cool because it allows customers and employees to interact as a group. I think a large writing group within an organization could use something like this.

Understanding through Poetry

For this week’s reading on information design, I decided to get a little creative. Therefore, I explored three different information architectural elements presented in the article by Salvo and Rosinski through the lens of a Shakespearean sonnet, employing his ab, ab; cd, cd; ef, ef; gg rhyme scheme and using iambic pentameter.

Sitemap: A Sonnet
When writing for the web a scribe should know,
That men and women often can get lost.
Their quest is: ride the information flow;
But sanity could be the reader’s cost.

They ride the ship that leaves behind the shore,
Their origins these people can’t recall.
And find themselves distracted evermore
With hyperlinks that whisper siren’s call.

But like the sextant and compass used past,
There is a tool that saves these weary souls.
A sitemap shows them site from first to last
And helps them reach their information goals.

Once these travelers tame the digi-seas,
They can explore most other sites with ease.

Using Granularity: A Sonnet
As all know, puzzle pieces have their place
With websites info comes in large and wee.
The principle that governs placement space
Is something we call granularity.

When pictures take up every bit and byte,
And text is crammed in tiny as a speck
Applying granularity is right
To keep the page’s balances in check.

Should TPS report be sent by post?
Or sent through faster electronic mail?
Which mode of message can convey the most?
When using granularity: no fail.

Identifying granularity
The finer is increased technology.

The Many Forms of Tags: A Sonnet
If only metadata were applied,
Each piece of info could be simply found.
By labeling each doc you will have tried
To organize and find your way around.

Taxonomy’s another way we can
Form stronger links leading us to the docs.
A limited vocabulary, man.
Like Dewey dec’mal’s system really rocks.

Folksonomy tags info in the cloud,
But keeping tabs on older stuff is hard.
So hash your tweets and keep your trending proud,
But from your past tags you may well be barred.

These types of tools help readers find their way
Through pages on the web both night and day.

But seriously, the Salvo and Rosinski article was an excellent way to learn about the different ways to conscientiously design information so that users can find it. I am glad that we went through all of the spatial metaphors. Right now at work, I am in charge of scanning all existing paper documents and tagging them for retrieval in the Image Now system. Not only do I have to tag documents, I have to come up with tagging classifications and criteria for the different areas (department governance, curriculum, the new school structure, etc.) and I am having a hell of a time wrapping my mind around what I think future users might use as criteria to find a particular type of document. It’s been kind of a nightmare.

Reading up on these concepts gave me a bird’s eye view of what I am doing. It is a whole different way of thinking of things. I have been banging my head against the proverbial wall trying to cram this tagging stuff into a metaphor of a filing cabinet so I could understand how to set up tagging fields. That isn’t working. This reading has helped me gain more insight into what I am doing.
It’s also kind of neat that I AM learning how to set up the criteria and classification. It ties in with what Hart-Davidson says about the future role of technical communicators as content managers. One of the areas that he talks about is “Creating and managing information assets, defining relationships between these and specifying display conditions for specific views of these” (p. 135). I am learning to bring about his “tangible outcomes” by using “Taxnomies, Object metadatas, document type, definitions and schema” (p. 136). Although Image Now management is for an internal document retrieval system, many of the principles cross directly over into content management. The more of these skills I am able to master, the better my chances will be when I look at other jobs.

U of M Finally Goes Social

So I complain a lot about my organization not using social media effectively. Well, Google turned on Google+ plus for their educational edition and the University of Minnesota jumped on board. Read the story here: http://blogs.twincities.com/yourtechweblog/2011/10/27/the-u-of-m-a-google-apps-using-school-embraces-google/

I am wondering what happens when a University doesn’t just allow its employees/students to use social media but actually encourages/expects them to by making it an available University tool? Will people be more apt to collaborate and engage if they are doing it through University provided service that is tied to their University account instead of a personal account? It’s interesting to think about.

Qualman 5 and 7

There were two key points in Qualman readings that really hit home with me. The first one is “Be more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Oglivy; listen first, sell second.” Social media is the perfect tool for listening to your customers. It gives them an open forum to complain or praise. I’m a firm believer that if you want to be successful at business (or communication) you need to have constant contact with your customers. You need to have conversations with them so you learn about their expectations, their wants, their needs, and their desires. I like to think of social media sites as never-ending, completely-open focus group.

The other idea that I really liked is “It’s better to live in a social media life making mistakes than living in a social media life doing nothing.” This idea is not new to me. I have been screaming this idea at my coworkers for years, yet they are still in the “we need to plan or social media strategy” phase. I think they are afraid to make mistakes with social media. I tell them over and over that we just need to do it. We have a Facebook page we have nearly 300 fans, who are just waiting to engage with us, yet we continue to use it as a news delivery vehicle.

My coworkers are afraid to engage with fans on Facebook. Every time a fan comments on a news story we basically have to have a meeting to figure out how we should respond to them. I say just do it.

If you are curious you can check out my organization’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Minnesota-Information-Technology/228749862154.  It is real exciting.

Spilka 4 & 5

I found it interesting the way Spilka brought up how Internet or computer based websites and documents are usually presented in a similar format, and without realizing it, we as users learn to expect a certain presentation when working with sources on the web. Spilka also goes on to explain that if a website or e-mail does not follow this common format “code,” we may not take it as seriously or even disregard it all together. The lack of expected format may also hinder the user’s ability to access and utilize the site for what it is meant for, causing the user to instead choose a different site to collect their information. I know personally at the workplace when I receive memos or reports from my coworkers I expect them to be in a certain format, and if they lack the format I am used to, I tend to question them rather than read and utilize their instructions or information. The same goes for websites. When I choose a site to collect information from, I tend to be drawn to the sites that keep the familiar format of starting with a home page, then from there direct the user via a list of links pertaining to each different topic the website covers. I never realized how important the format of a source could be, as well as how the format used links to my understanding and utilization of the material.

What Happens Here, Stays Here.

What’s 11,688 people strong, has 670,200 likes on their Facebook page and 7,292 views on their YouTube video?

Give up?

It’s the “Know the Code” campaign created by the Las Vegas tourism department. It’s essentially an anti-social media push in certain circumstances. Of course, Vegas tourists want you to Tweet/Facebook about their restaurants, casinos and entertainment but warn against taking photos of people and sharing them through the same social media facets. They even have a place on their Facebook page where you can “Report those who violate the code” through their Facebook page.

I first saw a video on TV and as I dug into it more, I thought it was interesting that the Vegas tourism department used social media to encourage visitors NOT to use social media. Further more, they created rules about what’s acceptable and what’s not when it comes to Facebook-ing, YouTub-ing and Tweeting.

I think this campaign is successful for a couple different reasons:

1. It creates buzz around Vegas and buzz equates to more visitors. More visitors create more dollars.
2. It demonstrates that Vegas is still a “cool” place to visit and shows that they understand issues and challenges that their audience faces. Not only do they understand their problems, they’re proposing a solution.
3. It created interactivity for participants rather than just allowing the audience to view their site. Audience members can sign an oath, respond to Facebook messages and Tweet “#knowthecode.”

Here’s one of their promotional videos:

Additionally, their web site has some interesting elements that help “humanize” it by calling out individuals who have broken the code. Now, weather these people are actually “real” is another matter all together but I definitely appreciate the effort. See left for an example.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  In Digital Literacy, Spilka talks about combining “rhetoric” and “technology” and I think this is a perfect example of the melding of the two. Essentially, the tourism department is trying to promote Vegas through a round-about campaign that not only says “visit Vegas” but also says, “We want to keep Vegas a safe place where ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ still applies despite the advances in technology.” Additionally, Qualman states that “people value the opinions of other people” and I believe this campaign relies on that type of thinking. This campaign boasts the accountability factor that by “knowing the code,” you’ll hold others accountable to do the same. Granted, this is different than what Qualman means in chapter 5 as he is addressing socialommerce, but the bare bones principal that “people value the opinions of other people” holds true in this case.

Shaped and Shaping Tools.

See in the  above clip opponent of technology in action!

The chapter impressed me about the new revelations I learned about twitter which I didn’t know before. The rhetoric surrounding Twitter and the rhetorical implication of Twitter are becoming fascinating and are everywhere. Before I read this chapter I didn’t know that :

• Twitter is ideal for sharing quick messages with groups. Probably because I didn’t use Twitter before reading this chapter.
• Shows all signs of real cultural phenomenon reason being the notion of  being widely mocked being featured on “The Daily Show”.
• Recently featured during a NASCAR race as well as receiving  mass media coverage.

As if this was not enough there is that side of technical communicators perspective which I find most interesting.  There are emerging rhetorical implications of Twitter.

• Twitter is public – when you post and ask for help incase you have a problem with installing something, within seconds you will get response on Twitter more than in a class settings.
• Twitter can be endlessly resorted and reorganized.  Twitter is not like most messaging systems which are designed for short-lifespan messages. Popular current trends in lists, can be search via location through Twitter search.
• Twitter is powerful in the aggregate. The public tweets allow Twitter to offer new and interesting possibilities for searching which help users to find and track events too new to appear on Google.

Twitter has been a versatile discovery and its helpful in information sharing, messaging in professional settings as well as accomplishing workplace tasks.

What I learned:

• Cultural affiliations of technology -  having some baseline, cultural agreements about what technologies should be allowed(p.88). The cell phone has its critics. Cell phones are not allowed in classes disturbance and in doctor’s offices, and  movie theaters because they jam technologies. I like how Clark termed all these opponents of technologies.
• Another interesting  point Gurak (1997), I like how Gurak showed interest in leveraging the rhetorical concepts of interpretive communities and the two key rhetorical elements namely ethos and delivery to evaluate the rhetoric used by on line communities.
• The “bridging’  between worker and tool. The argument by “Spinuzzi (2003), technical communicators have seen texts that they produce – manuals, references, instructions as bridging between worker and tool. This topic can be discussed at length and it is debatable.  It  reminds me of the  middleman threat  when it comes to the digital world.

Podcasts Don’t Need Rules

Qualman, Chapters 5 and 7—I like how Qualman brought up the point that as a consumer, you can actually have all three—cheap, quick and quality because of social media. Social media allows consumers to complain or express good things about products. This type of content makes companies respond because negative publicity in the world of social media isn’t limited to a certain group; it ends up being broadcasted everywhere. 10-years-ago if you wanted to complain about a company’s product, you had to contact the company to file a complaint. Now days, all you have to do is post your comment on Twitter or start a blog that expresses your opinion. I think it’s great for consumers to be able to post their opinions about products but I also think it can be pretty scary for a company because the company has a challenging time controlling lies that people are saying about them.

On page 137, Qualman brings up a great point about podcasts. A podcast doesn’t have a set amount of time to fill. It only lasts as long as the news is relevant. I think this is a great point because a podcast is less likely to waist the audience’s time. For example, an average local news program will last about 30 minutes. That’s what the consumer is used to, but there are times when the news could be longer or shorter. I think the news programs are hurting because each program needs to be a certain amount of time. I think ESPN really noticed the value with showing the audience what they want to see because ESPN now runs a tool bar on the left of the screen that shows the next five stories and they also show a timer on the screen that shows how much time is left of the current topic they are discussing.

ESPN

The local Fox news program in Minneapolis, MN does something like this on their 10 pm show. They list the top 10 stories in 10 minutes because they understand that viewers like me don’t want to waste our time watching stories that I don’t care about.

Spilka, Chapter 3—I loved the comment that since Twitter is public, people can track topics and events that are too new for Google (p.87). I think that shows the true value with Twitter and with social media. I always use Twitter to find current news stories. It’s funny because I am so current with my news that by the time someone tells about something, I already know what he or she is talking about. Social media allows people the ability to know more about a news story than the people that are supposed to report the story.

Week 8 | Social Media are Tools of Influence

This week’s readings cover many topics relating to how people use social media, including Twitter, product reviews (which I feel are a form of microblogging), and Facebook as tools of influence. Dave Clark’s chapter, Shaped and Shaping Tools on the rhetoric of technology is complex by the nature of its subject matter. He says that both rhetoric and technology are difficult to define individually, yet the two concepts go hand-in-hand. Nevertheless, it is even harder to define the rhetoric of technology. Clark says by its very essence, technology is rhetorical. When it comes down to it, Dave is examining how “technologies structure, shape, and influence the ways we communicate (p. 87).”

Twitter’s Influence
The structure of the author’s latest muse was 140 characters. He was marveling at the fact that while it was a simply coded program and a basic concept, the rhetorical implications of Twitter were very powerful. This was because Tweets are public (unless the author has an account with protected Tweets), Tweets are searchable and allow trends to surface, and Tweets in large numbers about the same subject can be powerful. Those who don’t use Twitter, yet have something powerful to say, lose an opportunity to compound the message through this potentially influential tool.

Product Reviews Influence
Twitter is changing how people communicate and who people communicate with. Similarly, other social media outlets are changing the way people shop online. I like how social media influences the way my friends and I shop. “Socialommerce is a referral program on sterroids (Qualman, p. 94), and “consumers are taking ownership of brands and their referral power is priceless (p. 97).” Qualman says that retailers are encouraging consumers to review products because whether a product is good or bad, eliciting feedback only helps the brand either sell more of the product or improve it. I look at online product reviews when I purchase things online and in the store. They often influence my purchasing decisions, too. Sometimes I write product reviews, too.
Yesterday I received an email request from Eddie Bauer to rate some outerwear I recently purchased online. Since reviewing seemed easy to do, and I liked my new purchases, I took a minute to review the products. On the other hand, I have also reviewed products I didn’t think were that great. I bought a clothes drying rack at a Target store. The rack is low quality and keeps falling apart. While I could no longer return it to the store because the 90-day return period had passed, I decided I could at least write an online review in hopes others not to make the same purchasing mistake I did.

Facebook’s Influence
Shoppers consider anonymous online product reviews, but shoppers also seek the advice of people they know via social media. Just the other day, I saw my friend recruited her friends’ advice on Facebook. She wanted recommendations on best smartphones, but not from anonymous reviewers or technology experts. Since people generally feel strongly about phone brands like Droid and iPhone, her friends and family rushed to her aid. She received many comments on the best phones to buy. Seeking advice gave my friend a list of phones to consider and hopefully helped her narrow down her options.
Companies miss an opportunity to connect with consumers when they don’t utilize social media like Facebook. I love shopping at Trader Joe’s, but I feel the company is missing out on a great advertising opportunity by having a profile on Facebook. The store could tell people about new products, new store locations, specials, and fun recipes to try.

Other Clever Ways to Influence Consumers
In “Winners and Losers in a 140-Character World,” Qualman discusses how integrating product advertising into the programming like the Charles Schwab podcast is smart, but it is not new. When I was young, my mom listened to famous announcer, Paul Harvey on the radio. Paul often endorsed products on air like the Bose Wave Radio. He was known for endorsing his favorite products on air (in turn for advertising support for his program). I felt that when Qualman talked about product advertising incorporated into programming, it was a tangent and not so much about social media. However, maybe it is best to think about it as talking to people where they are and where they will listen. Social media are powerful tools, and they shape the way people and companies communicate.

My friend receives many product recommendations on Facebook from friends and family.

This request was for my review of a recent purchase.

I left a rating for the junky drying rack on Target’s website.

Esoteric Theory With a Side Order of Internet Junkie

 

Spilka

Dave Clark’s essay on rhetoric in technology was extremely esoteric but I was able to take away some good ideas. I agree with him that technology and rhetoric are co-embedded in culture (p 85). I also agree that the words rhetoric and technology are both hard to pin down, so doing a review of the discipline is a slippery slope.

The theoretical frameworks he introduces (rhetorical analysis, technology transfer and diffusion, genre theory  and activity theory) don’t seem to click into place- none of them seem to neatly apply themselves to technology rhetoric. It is true when he says, “This lack is unfortunate at a time when technical communicators more than ever need to develop and use rhetorical tools for evaluating and implementing new technologies” (p 96). However, technology (no matter how you define it) is moving so fast that, as a target, it is going to continue to be hard to nail down.

I also found it interesting that he notes that other scholars have acknowledged that current activity theory analyses are incomplete because, “… [they] ignore the circumstances in which much knowledge work is done, that is, in for-profit, hierarchical corporations” (Thralls and Blyler, 1993, p. 14).

Qualman

As I sit here and type, I have no internet. I don’t know the last time this has happened to me. We have ordered an upgrade to our DSL and AT&T didn’t tell us there would be a minimum twelve-hour outage while they complete the steps. It is absolutely disconcerting. Both my husband and I had a day off: he is sick and I took a vacation day to study. When I came downstairs this morning, he said:  “You’re going to have a tough day ahead.” He told me about the outage. I told him I had all my homework on my desktop. Luckily.

It has been frustrating, as I’ve worked on assignments, to not be able to hop on the internet to look up a fact, use the much easier OWL database, and take a ‘brain break’ by checking my Facebook or Pinterest.

The reason I bring all of this up is that it relates to the Qualman reading for this week. He discusses, “That old adage that you can only have two out of the following – cheap, quick, or quality – doesn’t hold true within social media …”(p 108). He’s wrong-o. For us AT&T only lets us have one: quality.

In some of our other readings, he’s talked about the “little man” being able to champion his cause on social media, however some conglomerations are so big and have such a strangle hold that it doesn’t matter if you tweet or blog about it – unless you’re already famous. AT&T won’t let me get an iPhone unless I get a data plan with it. I am in wifi range almost every waking moment of my life. I don’t need a data plan. It made my husband madder than a wet hen that they wouldn’t separate out the service, but we can’t retaliate by boycotting AT&T. We still need them for their sweet, sweet bandwidth.

As of now, I have only three and a half hours left to wait til we’re back online. Maybe. Since I’m really having a hard time with the  withdrawal, it makes me wonder if – as a new media student – I am a junkie studying heroin.

 

Is it time for a Different Social Network?

Is it time for Twitter, is it time for a different  Social Network?

I am not old – I am busy! 
This is my excuse for not utilizing Twitter up until this semester. Of course, when I realized what the content of this particular course would be like, it became apparent that the only way to really understand this phenomenon was to experience it firsthand.

Because the majority of my experience lately is with Facebook, I just assumed that there would be similarities – there are not.  Dave Clark, in his article:  Shaped and Shaping Tools presented me with a much different perspective of Twitter.  When he described his frustration with a program, subsequent Tweet and then an answer from a perfect stranger, it became apparent to me that, unlike Facebook, what we say and do on Twitter reaches the world.

So far, I have found some very interesting Twitter feeds to follow including Mashable, Lifehacker others specifically relating to our school and my own personal interests.  Mashable is purported to be the largest independent online news site and caters to social media. Lifehacker is such an interesting feed and so far. I have seen everything from holiday decorating ideas to feeds about our cyber lifestyles.

This brings to mind our conversations regarding social networking. Because there is not only a possibility, but a probability to meet new people daily through Twitter, I find that this is, indeed a social networking activity.  Not only that, it is much more organized than I ever imagined. My initial impression was that this was a random, willy nilly type of activity where people posted randomly everything from where they were and what they were doing. It is much more than this.  The quality of information available via links and searchable content make this a very powerful resource.

Of course, you will note that what I mostly took away from Clark’s work was his introduction. As he continued on in his writings and the concepts got thicker and thicker, I found that it was increasingly difficult to maintain focus. This is not to say that his concepts and information is not valid and worth study.  I just find a more direct and lest scholarly approach easier to digest.

This being said, Qualman’s readings are much easier to assimilate and compare to real-life situations. His references to the power of social networking are such amazing information. I equate his references to the proverbial drop of water in a bucket. My one purchase may not really mean much on its own, but couple that with the purchases of my friends and their friends and everyone that I am a fan of on Twitter and our bucket is overflowing.

Social Networking on Blogs by Penny C. Sansevieri CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. is an amazing reference to the power of blogs and their place in the land of social networking.  Penny states in her blog post that

“Commenting on blogs posts is a sort of social networking, even better in fact because blog posts and their associated comments are searchable.”

Just like Twitter, we are able to search blog posts for pertinent information and use this information however we desire.  While Penny’s post relates to the trials of getting a publication noticed, it is a powerful statement about the uses and abuses of blogging.

After going through this week’s readings and paying a bit closer attention to both Twitter and blogs posted on the net, I am coming to feel the immense power of social networking. I am also becoming very disillusioned with Facebook. I am starting to yearn more for interesting concepts and tire of daily drama.  Does this make me a bad person? I am curious – how do you answer the following?

Reading-Appropriate Photo Post

I was just surfing on Pinterest, and I saw this. I’ve been filling my head all day with Turkle and Jenkins and it was so spot-on, that I had to share:

“it’s this thin geeky line that keeps it going”

Because I watched this video with my freshman today and because of Chris’s comment to Nate’s post, I thought it might be nice to share Jonathan Zittrain’s TED talk on some of the nicer things that happen on the web.

For more on the community ethos of Wikipedia or what Zittrain refers to as “random acts of kindness by geeky strangers,” be sure to watch Jimmy Wales’ TED talk too. Actually, while I’m link sharing, I also came across this story on the success of Wikipedia today.

Enjoy!

via Jonathan Zittrain: The Web as random acts of kindness | Video on TED.com.

Qualman, 5 & 7

I enjoyed chapter 5 in Qualman, it definitely hit home for me. I have used Facebook since February 2008, and it has been a part of my everyday life ever since. I found it enlightening when it noted how a major part of Facebook’s success is its ability to allow its users to “brag, compete, or look cool” without breaking any of the unacceptable social rules of our society. It is frowned upon to brag about oneself openly to others, but with social media outlets, such as Facebook, our page is our own, and if we want to brag a little, it is totally acceptable. Most of us don’t even realize we are doing it! For instance, if I do well at a rodeo or barrel race, I post that as my status. However, in real life I would never walk up to someone and begin a conversation with my recent successes. Ultimately, I believe we enjoy these social media outlets so much because it allows us to break the rules of society and create a totally “look at me” personal page with only the best pictures of ourselves, only what we like, such as activities, quotes, movies, and books, as well as posting statuses about our beliefs, feelings, and lives that we may never share if no one in the real world asks about it specifically. I have always wondered what it was exactly that made me waste sometimes hours of the day on Facebook, sometimes procrastinating other more important things (such as homework!) in order to do so. I believe Qualman sums it up perfectly. Maybe now with this new outlook I’ll be able make Facebook less of an obsession… maybe!

All Restaurants Are Taco Bell (language)

Ok, so I was so tired tonight –  hard day at work. To relax, I grabbed my Ipad, pressed the icon for Netflix and started watching the first fun, sci-fi movie that I saw: Demolition Man (1993).  The movie had not gone very far when I realized the number of references to elements that are in our Turkle readings.

When I think of the “reduction in meaning” that is referenced by Turkle, I think of a lack of intimacy and even a dehumanizing factor that occurs when using technology.  This movie was absolutely packed full of references to just this.  Here are a few:

• The dispatcher answers a call and says something like: “911 – if you would like to speak to a recording, press 1 now”.  DAMN!
• People die and the squad room is shocked, sort of. Moments later when a conveyance is located through technology, everyone is elated and cheers. The deaths are all but forgotten.
• The Compu-Chat program takes on a human personality and is deferred to as such. Even to go so far as to have an upset individual go to the computer for guidance.
• The human police officers utilize a computer to walk them, step-by-step, through a narrative in order to act human.
• The only person (Simon Phoenix), who can master technology can control it. All others are helpless.

Here we have a movie going on 20 years old that is addressing issues that concern us today.  Of course, I am not saying that all restaurants will one day be Taco Bell, but I am saying that to a degree, we are all concerned with technology dehumanizing us.

Chapter 4 and 6

Chapter 4

Social Media creates, solves long voting lines:

Qualman brought a point on political realms when he mentioned how the social media revolution played an important part to help ease the burdens of crowds and hassle which are always the norm during voting exercise. He suggested micro blogging tool to help supply real-time data on polling conditions. The mobile device was a crucial tool because it was used to send in reports. Qualman mentioned so many other alternatives which made the voting exercise to be manageable in the 2008 elections. His assertion is  proved that  utilizing free social media tools and placements is more timely and cost effective than traditional advertising. I like the point Qualman used to  alert politicians and governments regarding the use of social media. He urged them to keep up  with advancements in social media, because they will be left behind. He points out that using social media in politics pays big dividends and also he pointed out the success of Obama’s 2008 and the role of the internet which helped him to win. Social media is here to stay and we are all benefiting from it.

 Chapter 6

Qualman reminded me the importance of Face book postings when he related the  Texas Longhorn offensive lineman and preventative behavior in social media.  Soon after posting his racist update on his Face book profile about Barack Obama when he was elected president of the United States.  I think people should know  that the speed of information exchanged within social media mitigates  casual schizophrenic behavior.

According to  (Qualman, 123) soon after that was posted. Coach Mack Brown kicked the lineman off the team. Even though the lineman posted an apology the damage had already been done. People should know that social media cannot be used for own gain that is offensive or provocative language cannot be entertained on Face book.

I read this article in yahoo news : http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/american-faces-15-years-prison-blog-post-insulting-162308225.html. You may check it out its very important to blog with a sense of responsibility because there is always the law to punish people who are careless so that is why it is important to be ethical in whatever you do especially with social media. There is no way that you can write anything abusive and get away with it.

What I learned:

• I learned that I should not under estimate the power of social media in all what I do be it on personal or business
• Social media should be respected at all times for it might get you into trouble if you use it negatively like in the above Texas Longhorn offensive’s story.
• Ethics should be part of us as long as we move on with social media we will be at peace.

Customer Centered – Not Corporate Centered

In with the old –In with the new!

I consider myself a pretty computer-savvy and up to date kind of gal; however, right out of the box, many of the concepts that R. Stanley Dicks presented refreshed my thinking. Ok, I was not surprised to find out that “Today, a majority of technical communicators are women…” (Spilka, 51).  What was a wakeup call was the concept that our industry is not only about the here and now – it encompasses generations of techniques and information.

EXAMPLE:

This should not have come as a surprise to me because in my own present industry, we have UPS (uninterruptible power systems) units in the field that were manufactured in the 80’s and earlier. In order to provide technical assistance, we have to utilize old manuals. Sometimes, it is necessary to recap these dusty tomes or adjust our present technology to work on these older units. One example is the ports they provide. A technician can easily communicate with a newer unit via the communications card; however, an older unit used a serial port. As many of you know, serial ports are no more standard today on a laptop than a 3 ½ inch floppy drive. This creates an element of transition and clarification when dealing with these older systems.

Present your greater worth or prepare to be outsourced!

Here is a concept that sends shivers up my spine.  Then again, I suppose there are levels and levels of justification to contend with here. A company that does not make a profit cannot afford to hire and if outsourcing menial tasks keeps the boat afloat, then so be it.  I know that many charge ahead with “buy American!” I agree with this sentiment; however, I am
also a realist and what is real to me is that we live in a global world, not just a local neighborhood. We no longer compete with only the talented individuals in our home town. We now compete with people all over the country and world!

It hit home with me when the book’s discussion centered on a post industrialist society and referred to technical communicators of old as “word smiths” (Spilka 54).  This scenario is
nothing new to our society. There was a time when a person graduated high school (or most often not), went to the factory and worked there as unskilled labor for 40 years until they retired with a pension. These jobs have also been mostly outsourced – it is time for America to work smarter!

EXAMPLE:

As many of you know, I work for a company as a Technical Sales Specialist. What is this? It is not simply a salesperson. In order to protect my job, I need to bring many skills to the table while at the same time helping to keep down costs.  I do this by providing the following:

• Work from home which saves over $600 per month in office expense alone
• Maintain my own records, do my own calls and provide sales and service to my customers as:
  • Main contact
  • Dispatcher for Technicians
  • Quoting units, services, batteries, parts and other for a variety of manufacturers
  • Provide pricing, availability and freight along with tracking information for orders
  • Maintain a database of technical documentation that can be distributed at need
  • Handle technical calls when they arise, and whenever possible at all hours

Customer Centered

There are other benefits that I provide as well, but in the end it is all about planned job security.  I know that I cannot just sit back and do the minimum – this will flag me for replacement.

As is exemplified in the model by Zuboff and Maxim, I have already placed my customer at the center of my universe – I am ahead of the game.  As a matter of fact, I would consider my
model to be one of Customer-Centered, not Corporation-Centered.

Netflix Caves

I just heard on the news this morning that Netflix abandoned its plans to split their service into two (video streaming and DVD rentals). I can’t help but wonder how much of their decision was driven by social media. I know their was tremendous opposition to their plan and clearly remember the Twitter wire lighting up with #netflix hashtags.

If you are interested the story can by found here: http://mashable.com/2011/10/10/netflix-abandons-qwikster/.

Here is one interesting line from the story. “The move baffled many and was perhaps further complicated by the fact that Netflix had no control over the @Qwikster Twitter account.”