“Thank you, old media.” “No. TY, new media.”

Qualman’s first chapter brought on this little post.

Oh, yes.  Old media vs. new media: the oft-discussed subject in the Technical Communication and MSTPC programs.  Both have their pros and cons, and I think that at this point in time, each has its proper place.  Since my son just celebrated his 9^th birthday and we’ve been working on thank-you notes, I’ll go with this comparison:

Old media is to handwritten thank-you notes

as

New media is to sending thank-you e-mails.

Handwritten thank-you notes are a must for grandparents and other respected individuals. This thank-you media requires more thought, effort, and even comes at a higher monetary cost (stationery, stamps, smiley-face stickers, etc.)  We are likely to send them out with correct spelling, capitalization and punctuation.  Errors or missing details can’t be added once the thank-you is sent without going through the entire process again.

E-mail thank-yous, however, will suffice for close friends and other situations in which informality is acceptable.   We may let punctuation and spelling slide, and e-mail is a free service, so it costs us nothing.  An e-mail can come across as more of an afterthought, with generally less time and effort put into it.  We could turn around and send an additional e-mail correcting errors or adding things we forgot in minutes.  There is a more fleeting feeling to them, and recipients are not very likely to keep them once they are read.

Likewise, old media creates more of a record, whereas new media seems fleeting and fickle.  I think of watching a story develop over the course of a day, and watching the headlines change on CNN.com.  We can get very different information, depending on at what point of the day we check the website, and we understand it’s best to wait until everything is sorted out before taking the online news reports as complete and accurate.  Old media (newspapers in particular) gather the information once per day, so there is really only one opportunity per day for erroneous stories.  While the possibility of misinformation still certainly exists, it is not nearly as rampant, and it is not acceptable when misinformation appears in hardcopy print because we expect these outlets to verify their sources and information.  They, themselves, are often considered to be more respectable organizations because their reports are more reliable.

This might seem like a case against my argument, but it demonstrates that when old media gets something wrong, it’s a big deal, but when new media reports something erroneously, it’s no big whoop.

For similar reasons, I think we are more likely to keep, for example, a newspaper clipping of our graduation announcement rather than printing out the online version of the article.  We might see the article online first, but we would be prompted to go out and buy that day’s hardcopy newspaper for scrapbooking or archiving.  It is my opinion that we have a lot more trust in old media than new, but we are drawn to new media because of our love of instant gratification.  Humans are a pretty impatient species, and new media can give us what we want instantly.  There’s a saying at my place of employment: Do you want it done now, or do you want it done right?  New media does it now, but old media is more likely to do it right.

Encyclopedia Titanica (Qualman Ch 1)

“Internet dead ahead!”  The thing that interests me most when I look over the carnage that the internet has left in its wake is at what point did these industries–encyclopedias, newspapers, record labels, magazines and book publishers–realize that they were doomed.  Was it something specific like the papers piling up at the end of all their neighbors driveways or their kids getting busted using Napster, or did/will they live in denial all the way to the bitter end?

The publishers of Encyclopedia Britannica probably never thought that it would be possible for unpaid and unvetted people to equal the quality of the articles produced by paid professionals, but recent studies have shown that Wikipedia is at least the equal of Britannica.  Is Wikipedia the first real example of large-scale crowd sourcing?

In chapter one of Socialnomics by Erik Qualman, he summarizes how technology and human nature conspired to overthrow industries that have existed for hundreds of years.  For example, Encyclopedia Britannica began publication in 1768 (I looked that up in Wikipedia ironically).  The big surprise to me–and maybe to these industries–isn’t that they disappeared, but the fact that it all happened so fast.  As Qualman points out, social media has only been around for a few years, but it is so perfectly aligned with our basic human need for connectedness that it is like the internet on steroids.  I mean, it has surpassed porn as the most popular activity on the internet (p 1).  I never thought I’d see the day when porn was overthrown on the internet.

According to Qualman, “As human beings we have the dichotomous psychological need to be our own individual, yet we also want to feel that we belong to and are accepted by a much larger social set.” (p. 2) Why have an editor of a newspaper that doesn’t even know me decide what I see in the newspaper when I can have my friends and colleagues on LinkedIn and Facebook recommend stories based on a personal/professional relationship?

Newspapers aren’t doing themselves any favors by moving to a subscription model for internet content locking it behind a firewall.  That only works if you have a product that can’t be obtained elsewhere.  News and commentary are available from tons of sources for free, and, as Wikipedia has demonstrated, just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s bad.  Qualman’s scenario about the Idaho-senators blogger (p. 14 – 21) did a good job capturing the futility of the old business model.

There was really only one area where I question Qualman’s argument.  He contends that the time that appears to be a waste on Facebook, actually makes us more productive since we gain access to potentially critical information much faster.  I’ll admit that that can be the case, but sometimes it’s like drinking from a fire hose of  Zynga requests, political status updates, and funny cat pictures to find the kind of useful tidbits that Qualman uses in his example.  Have you ever had your boss walk by while you had Facebook open?  Did they think you were being productive?  Did you?

It ain’t what it used to be: Digital Literacy (ch1)

I don’t think I have ever really met anyone famous, so I never get to name drop.  But, the foreword to Digital Literacy  was written by JoAnn Hackos, whom I’ve talked to many times–I even got to interview her once.  In technical communication circles she’s about as famous as it gets, but that doesn’t really help me with my friends outside of work.

Ok, back to the task at hand.  The thing that stuck with me in JoAnn’s foreword is summed up in this quote:

The authors argue throughout that the roles and responsibilities of technical communicators are changing rapidly–in some cases for the worse.  The focus on producing “books” by individual authors working independently is rapidly coming to an end. (p. ix)

If you have worked in TC during the last decade or so, then you know this to be true.  The dot com bust followed by waves of cost reductions and outsourcing have really demolished a lot of training and documentation groups.  The jobs that remain require different skills and a lot of flexibility.

Part of that change is due to the death of the book-based authoring model that Hackos mentions at the end of the quote above.  The rise of XML, DITA, and CMSs is destroying the technical communication profession in the same way that the internet has wrecked the newspaper industry.  And that is actually a GOOD thing.

Yes, if it is your goal to go out and get a job writing a technical manual you are going to be disappointed.  But, if you are a curious person that likes to explore all the possible modes for communicating technical information to people in a way they can understand, then you are in luck.  Technology–including social media–has done such a thorough job destroying the old tech comms model that you can get in on the ground floor of defining what it means to be a technical communicator in the future.  Most of the Introduction  of the book was spent driving this point home, for example, “[Technical communicators] need to define their own opportunities and them move boldly forward.  In short, it’s time to adapt or move over.” (Myers p. 2)

I think the hardest part for a lot of people that I have worked with is that the new model (whatever it turns out to be) will require us to be a lot more social.  It might mean creating interactive training, or holding webinars, or interacting online with real customers.  You might need to have video or audio production skills–I talked to a guy at Microsoft that rewrote job descriptions so he could hire people from CNN and Lucas Film rather than typical tech writers.

Pretty much the whole chapter was a trip down memory lane for me and I think that Carliner was dead-on about everything in there.  Being in tech comms isn’t about locking yourself away in the corner and writing your book anymore.  It’s about leveraging all the cool new tools, including social media, to more effectively communicate with our audience.

Is Social Networking Right for School?

According to Jack Molisani and his article “Social networking for you” “Our job is not to write user manuals and sales brochures. Our job is to get user-optimized content to people when they need it and where they want it. In other words, follow your audience.”

What if my audience ranges in age from 15 to 18 years old? What if my audience is already physically captive in my room? What if my audience is my Literature of the Land class or my American Studies class? What if I’m my audience’s teacher? Do I still have to follow them? Yes I do.

And that’s a tough task because they come from so many different backgrounds and are going in so many different directions with so many different talents, concerns, questions, and challenges that it’s hard to follow them all.

Ah, but perhaps social networking will actually make it easier—or at least more successful since that’s what so many of them are familiar with anyway.

Sure, Molisani is talking about social networking to advance a career or business, but many of the arguments he uses make sense in education too.

The ease of finding information. Right. So why would students want to listen to a teacher lecture about the difference between alliteration, assonance, and consonance when they’d be able to google the terms and find definitions and examples in about 45 seconds if they ever found a need to? Since students don’t need help finding such information anymore, teachers need to find ways to push students to put the information and technology tools they have to good use.

Ask a friend. Molisani suggests that web sites should allow people to interact since they may have valuable information to share and will find a way to talk about a product anyway. The most engaging classrooms encourage student interaction and input. Wouldn’t it be nice if students could interact in an extension of that classroom (the web) after the bell rings. Teachers might as well help provide the structure for that.

Molisani says, “You are the master of your career.” Students could become the masters (or at least very active advocates) of their education too. Rather than wondering where the teacher’s plan is going, the internet offers students the opportunity to have some say in the direction a lesson takes. If the curriculum states that everyone has to learn how to write persuasively, why do all students have to show that the same way and to the same audience. The answer is they don’t, and social networking on the internet gives students the opportunity to reach an audience that may be more meaningful–outside the walls of the school.

Since students are already so good at social networking in the halls and after school, why not harness their natural talents for class-related purposes too?

RE: Social Media Taking Over

Chapter two in Qualman’s book: Socialnomics was interesting to read because I related to much of the content being covered. Qualman suggests, “ Cameras document everything, and technologies like Facebook’s Mobile Upload and ‘tagging’ can disseminate a naked keg stand to your network faster than you can count to five.” I recently attended a birthday party for a relative, and my niece recorded the whole thing via her smart phone. I don’t think she ever actually watched the party through her own eyes—rather through her display screen. After the recording was finished, she was so excited to upload it to Facebook. I didn’t understand this—I asked myself: why can’t we just enjoy the moment anymore? I asked her why she recorded the party to put on Facebook, she didn’t have much of an answer.

This need to record and post everything is also true in other situations. Anytime I go out with my friends, someone is taking pictures and uploading them to Facebook, no longer does privacy exist. I am not sure if this is bad necessarily, but it is different. The notion of connecting with one’s children via social media rather than through oral conversation is also different. Qualman notes, “In many instances, social media can help bring families a little closer by enabling parents to unobtrusively follow their kids’ lives.’” Perhaps in some cases, but I can certainly see how this may backfire. More to the point however, if parents begin to rely solely on social media to communicate with their children—to find out about their day—what is lost as a result? To argue that passive communication is better than active is also interesting to consider.

One topic that I have not considered, addressed in chapter 3 is the notion that email may go extinct. I send many emails everyday, so the idea that in the not so distant future email will be obsolete is hard to fathom. However, I don’t doubt it. The rate at which technology now evolves is staggering. For instance, as Qulaman notes, even the way we date has changed due to technology. Qualman states:

First, people used to give out their home phone number. Then people began to give out their email address instead. At first it seemed odd to ask someone for a date over email, but then it became quite natural. Then we progressed to mobile phone numbers because some people didn’t have land lines anymore. Besides it was easier to message one another—it was less intrusive and awkward: ‘What are you doing tonight?’

To some extent I think it is appropriate to ask the tough questions in person, or over the phone, rather that take the passive approach—perhaps I am just a traditionalist. While text messaging and social media offer a means to gain knowledge about another person—it is only portrayed information. That is, what you see on Facebook may not be what you get in real-life. As such, in-person conversations may still be the most fruitful. Overall, chapter 2 and 3 in this book forced me to question my own decision regarding my use (or lack their of) of social media. Further, it provided a lot of good insight regarding why social media is so popular which is beneficial to someone like me who does not have a very good understanding of it due to never participating in it.

It’s All About Attitude

Chapters two and three of Eric Qualman’s Socialnomics do a great job of explaining how companies can leverage social media to build and enhance their image and reputation. The key, it seems, is to focus on the positive. Some companies take a very reactive approach, viewing critical feedback on various social media outlets as something to be controlled or contained. Responding in this way (essentially by stifling the opinions of consumers) really doesn’t do much for the company or the consumer. Companies that are truly successful use criticism in a more productive way, as Qualman explains,

“Effective companies and people relish online feedback. They use the information to make themselves more competitive by improving their products and services in the eyes of the consumer . . . Good companies view it as an opportunity to prove to the customer that they are willing to go the extra mile for them” (p. 40).

Personally, I hadn’t thought about it this way before. It’s really in a business’s best interest to respond to online criticism proactively. Then, they can not only acknowledge the consumer’s complaint, but also create an opportunity for themselves. If they are able to rectify the situation, they demonstrate—in a very public way—their willingness to help and that they care about their customers’ satisfaction.

Today, the companies that embrace the social capabilities of an online environment are in the best position to thrive. While doing this week’s readings, I found a good example. Zappos, the online shoe retailer, uses Twitter to as a way for employees to communicate directly with customers about their products. This is exactly the type of positive, proactive interaction Qualman is talking about. Not only can employees assist customers, if needed, but they can also interact with them on a personal level—in front of a presumably large audience in the public sphere.

Companies who are struggling to develop a social media strategy would do well to examine their approach. Using lemons (criticism and complaints) to make lemonade (a lasting, positive impression to customers and their social networks) is an invaluable tool. The company doesn’t necessarily control what the online community is saying, rather it uses it to positively influence the way consumers feel.

Grab the reins…

This week’s readings were pretty interesting, since I don’t consider myself as being very familiar with social networking. So the article by Boyd and Ellison out of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication was a good start to learn more about the history and some of the few researches that have been done here in the U.S. According to the authors “social network sites are structured as personal (or ‘egocentric’) networks, with the individual at the center of their own community” – or like Baron states they are for relationships that are not “physically proximate” [p. 71]. One thing seems for sure, social network sites will reshape offline social geography (Lee Humphrey in Boyd/Ellison). How so? Well the just the simple fact “that ‘friends’ on social network sites are not the same as ‘friends’ in the everyday sense” (Boyd/Ellison) will have a great impact on our social skills overall. Often we use these sites by staying connected with people we don’t really want to go through the effort and really connect with them by spending time with them and by sharing our lives. As email seems to be outdated in the younger generation already and the new way to communicate is via text, IM or social network sites like Facebook, as there will be a different form of social interactions created. I guess the process started already.

However, to me more interesting is the professional aspect of social network sites. Qualman offered in both chapters great examples on how customer service can be redefined using these tools. I never heard about vanity search or Miles. I found the example about the how to connect with your customers as really eye-opening. For a short while I worked for a real estate broker. I held a few open houses and my main goal was to get people’s email addresses. It didn’t matter if they weren’t really interested in that particular house. It mattered to connect with them, to reach them, to get their email so that we then later could send them newsletters etc. about other listings. According to Qualman, it is nowadays not anymore about getting that person into my database, but it is about starting a real – well online – relationship with the customer via social networks. “Your customer wants to have a relationship with you and even help out where they can. All it takes is honesty, transparency, listening, and reacting” [56]. To boil it all down: Let the consumer brag about your products – not you. After reading those chapters, Molisani’s article in the Intercom was tailored even more to our profession. He states: “Our job is not to write user manuals and sales brochures. Our job is to get user-optimized content to people when they need it and where they want it. In other words, follow your audience” [4].

Even though, I try not to share my private life that much on social network sites, I believe Molisani is right that we as Technical Communicators have to leave a digital (positive) footprint of our works. We have to know these tools and platforms to be able to advise our customers and employers how to best connect with their audience – and we have to brag about it … online. To speak with his words: Let’s start “grabbing the reins of” our “career and steering it where” we “want it to go”.

Keeping up with the Jones’s Status Updates

There were a couple of things that really stood out for me in chapter 3 of Socialnomics, by Erik Qualman.  First, email is dead, it just doesn’t know it yet.  And, second, if our friends have better status updates than us, we will get off the coach and run a 5k just to one-up them.

First let’s start with the horse-and-buggy that email has become.  Qualman provides the following quote from a director of Apple iTunes . . .

At Apple, we generally hire early adopters.  That being said, I was still blown away when we recently hired a 22-year-old and he had literally never sent an e-mail.  Via his iPhone he had always communicated with his friends either by instant messenger, text, phone call, or comments within Facebook.  I believe he is not alone and this is a trend we will continue to see with the next generation. (p. 47)

I’m almost twice as old as this kid–so maybe it is because I’m old–but I still use email at work all the time.  That said, when I think about my life outside of work, I’m not that much different than Apple-boy.  I text my family and friends, or post to their FB page, and I send private messages to their FB page if it needs to be private.  So, I can kind of see how a young person today could get through life without email, but what about work?   I think maybe work needs the formal structure the email provides.  If not, what is holding back the spread of social media inside of companies.  I bet that 22-year-old learned how to use email after he got hired.

The second phenomenon that Qualman described was about how constantly commenting (and reading others comments) on life causes us to live more meaningful lives.  He describes the case of an 83 year old man named Bill Tily who consciously examines all of his status posts (p. 51).  Then when he finds that he is wasting his time, he redirects himself to do more fulfilling activities.

I’ve thought about this myself, though not to the same degree as Bill.  More commonly, I see that my friends are doing something cool while I’m watching Wipe Out and I take stock and try to make some changes.  I’ll be honest, I have a couple of friends that are hard-core athletes: one runs triathlons and the other travels the planet riding in and writing about bike races.  While I admire their drive, I often find their posts incredibly annoying.  Things like, “Just completed a seven-mile run to 7-Eleven for a bottle of YooHoo”  or, “Sipping wine in Tuscany after a long ride.”   It just makes my life seem kinda dull.

But again, it does somehow motivate me to ask myself if I’m really making the most of my life.  Wasn’t it Socrates that said that, “The unexamined life is not worth living” ?   Could social media really be what causes us to shut off Farmville and live better lives?

The New Company Website

Chapter three of Socialnomics was a perfectly-timed read for me this week. In this chapter Erik Qualman explains that email is on its way out, referring to the decline in the use of this technology by Generations X and Y (p. 46). He also points out that websites are serving different purposes these days, they should no longer be the sole means of online information about a company:

… [A company] could be in communication with fans and consumers on someone else’s database (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.). Yet, many companies fail to grasp this new concept. They build elaborate YouTube or Flicker pages, placing callouts and click actions that send the user outside the social network, often to their company website (p. 48).

Qualman vividly compares this antiquated strategy to the following…

It’s analogous to meeting a pretty girl in a bar and asking if she would like a drink. When she responds “yet,” rather than ordering a drink from the bartender, you grab her and rush her into your care and drive her back to your place… (p. 49).

Okay, so we all get Qualman’s point, but why was this read well-timed for me you ask? Well I would just love to share… A friend of mine introduced me to her photography business this week. It is a small, hobby business, but growing quickly and earning her a nice supplemental income. Over lunch we were discussing new businesses, marketing them and the-like when she happened to mention she didn’t have a website. (Gasp.) I had to hide my surprise and the inner-dialogue, What is a snazzy little photography business doing without an equally-snazzy website?! Well, as I found out later, the answer is quite a lot.

After lunch we scheduled a time for her to come and take pictures of my kids the following evening. The next afternoon I noticed a Facebook message from her suggesting I “like” her page so that she could “share” with me a sneak-peak album she would post after the shoot. Hmmm, now you have my attention. Absolutely, I will like that page right this minute… task completed.

Painted Iris Photography + Design’s Facebook Page

After an hour of photos and lots of good chatting, my friend headed home. The next morning I checked Facebook, thinking she couldn’t possibly have anything posted already. Yet, there they were, a dozen or so darling shots of my kidlets. And the marketing beauty of it for her little business? All I had to do was hit “share” to post them to my wall along with the link to the original album located on her Facebook page. Twenty-four hours later, dozens of my friends and family had commented about the photos and quite likely browsed her business page. A page that is updated almost daily, unlike most websites, with new sneak-peak albums… all spreading kiddo-cuteness among family and friend networks. THAT, my friends, is brilliant and in this particular scenario MUCH more effective than a static website.

The best way for me to summarize this lesson is to finish with Jack Molisani’s frank comment in Is Social Networking for You?: “Why should your company have a Facebook presence? Because that’s where your audience is” (p.10).

Social networking is only for entertainment in my world. And for spying.

You know why we love social networking?  Because we love ourselves, we naturally compare ourselves to others, and we are nosey.  Also, we feel important when we self-publish.

What?  That’s just me?

Boyd and Ellison

Friendster failed because it tried to tell its users what they should be, rather than allowing them to (even unknowingly) contribute to the development of the site’s features.  Facebook has been more receptive to the directions in which users themselves are taking the site.  A main point of social networking is to allow individuals to express and define themselves, and Friendster seems to have been hellbent on nipping that in the bud.

Qualman

In Chapter 3, Qualman discusses Millennials as though they are all committed to bettering the world.  Qualman seems to assume Millennials are keenly aware of world happenings, but while they are exposed to much more information than previous generations, might much of that information not be from reputable sources?  In fact, in our world of instant communication, there have been embarrassing incidents of incorrect information given out by reputable sources that jumped the gun and reported results of elections (for example) prematurely.  The speed with which news must be reported in order for outlets to be competitive, and the desire to create eye-catching headlines compromises the integrity of even the most trusted sources.

Also, are Millennials really that much more interested in bettering the world?  Or is it just that they are in their mid-20s, fresh out of college, and it seems that anything is possible?  Weren’t hippies the same way in the 1960s?  Perhaps if social networking were available to hippies, they would be branded the same way Millennials are in the present time.  Now they are “baby boomers” and considered to have different priorities from Generations X and Y.  Of course they do!  They’re at a different point in life!  They’ve experienced things that demonstrate why change is difficult to make in the world, and they’ve moved on to working on the things they have control over.  Qualman points to the fact that so many Generation Yers voted in the 2008 election, compared to lower numbers of Generation Xers who had voted when they were the same age.  This factoid used as “proof” that Generation Yers are out to change the world fails to consider that the 2008 election was a huge deal, with more voters participating overall, due to several economic and social factors in the U.S., along with the first African American candidate.

I realize this was not the main point of this reading, but I get frustrated when any large number of people are assumed to have the same (albeit generalized) set of values.

I was also bothered by the practices Qualman brings to light, especially the quote from Allison Bahm on page 46, “I’ve started relationships and signed contracts exclusively within social networks.”  Yipes!  While I don’t know the exact nature of Ms. Bahm’s business, this practice would make me very nervous.  The work world I live in requires everything in writing, documented, confidential and hand-signed.  It is difficult for me to imagine my employer or any of our usual customers considering any SNS to be suitable for professional use, but then again, we government contractors are an anal-retentive bunch.

Hey, baby. What’s your Telex number?

“Is Social Networking for You?”

I have to admit I couldn’t relate very well to “Is Social Networking for You?”  The company I work for sells products to the Department of Defense rather than the general public.  At this point, there is no way government buyers are allowed to source products or manufacturers through social networking.  We are called out on drawings and official documents as approved sources for certain part numbers, and sometimes the customer has no choice but to buy the product from us.  I suppose social networking is not “for” our company, but involvement in social networking can obviously be beneficial for those that sell products to the general population.  If I hear about a product I’m interested in, I go to the company’s website to learn about it and then ask my Facebook friends if they’ve used the product in order to get reviews, much like practices that are discussed in Qualman’s chapters.  It is in those companies’ best interest to have lots of information available for the consumer.

SNS = Social Network Sites (not Super Nintendo System) Boyd and Ellison

I’m guessing that most Americans understanding of the history of Social Network Sites (SNS) comes from the movie The Social Network, myself included.  Based on that, I assumed that there was MySpace and Friendster and then Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook smote them.  Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison, however, clear that all up in their article Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.  I think the thing that surprised me the most about the history part of this article is how quickly the members of the various social networks abandoned them when they got annoyed.

When Friendster got more popular, the network performance suffered and then as more and more people joined it became less cool, “. . . exponential growth meant a collapse in social contexts: Users had to face their bosses and former classmates alongside their close friends.”  If FB messes up bigtime could they fold up too?  I can’t remember where I read this, but I have heard that many young people are abandoning FB (or are at least downplaying it) in favor of Twitter since their Mom and Dad haven’t joined Twitter yet and they can still say what they want.

Now Facebook has been pretty stable in terms of performance, but it definitely seems to be declining in the coolness area.  Maybe it is just me, but the more people I add to my “Friends” the less I post to FB.  Yes, there are privacy settings, but figuring them out is like doing one of those logic puzzles.  You know, “Jane likes bananas and grapes, but only on Sundays.  Bill hates grapes and likes bananas, but will only eat them in the morning.  What kind of fruit can Jane and Bill eat on Tuesday afternoon.”  Is there anyone out there that hasn’t been burned by a status update that somehow made it to someone that it shouldn’t have?

And now our employers are busy implementing their own internal SNSs, “This growth has prompted many corporations to invest time and money in creating, purchasing, promoting, and advertising SNSs.”  It’s one thing to post something that annoys your Sister-in-Law, it is something else entirely to offend the Director of Marketing (or some other muckety-muck).  I have no evidence of this, but I suspect that this is a significant reason why most corporate social networks are lame: no one wants to offend anyone so no one challenges anything–no matter how stupid.

In our private life we can choose our friends and we stand a chance in understanding our audience, “In listing user motivations for Friending, boyd (2006a) points out that “Friends” on SNSs are not the same as “friends” in the everyday sense; instead, Friends provide context by offering users an imagined audience to guide behavioral norms.”  But corporate SNSs are guided by org charts and not personal relationships.  Without having this guide, how can companies leverage the power of social networking for collaboration and sharing without triggering all the bad aspects–misunderstanding and mistrust?  And add cultural differences to the list and it starts to look a little hopeless.

But Boyd and Ellison do offer a little hope, I think, when they say, “Although exceptions exist, the available research suggests that most SNSs primarily support pre-existing social relations. Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe (2007) suggest that Facebook is used to maintain existing offline relationships or solidify offline connections, as opposed to meeting new people.”  Maybe rather that dictating to people who their “friends” should be inside a company, they should allow people to share comments with colleagues of their choosing. It seems counterintuitive, but maybe we need less connections to get more sharing.

Blogging: Rising to the Occasion or Being Swept Away

Not long ago, my wife and I were canoeing Mud Creek between the Collins Marsh and the Manitowoc River. We pulled into an eddy below the dam at the south end of the marsh to watch the carp trying to hurl themselves upstream and over the dam. Who can blame them for trying to move out of a dwelling as ingloriously named as “Mud Creek” to the more middle-class neighborhood of Collins Marsh? It’s kind of like the American Dream–upward mobility in a very literal and metaphorical way.

But they are carp. Just carp. What are the chances they can actually better themselves? What is the likelihood that a bloated carp can ever lift itself out of the only mud it has ever known and wallowed in, to find a new home in a cleaner community? And even if one did succeed, could it ever be accepted as something other than a carp? It’s a tough name to overcome.

Most of the carp we watched smacked right into the concrete wall of the dam and splatted into the muddy water of the creek. A few made it to the top of the dam, floundered around, not knowing what to do with their unexpected progress, only to be swept back down by the relentless current. Not once did we see a carp make it out of the creek and into the marsh.

Progress, but not for carp.

That’s kind of how I see myself in this situation. What do I know about blogging? Nothing. And the obstacles in my way look pretty tall and solid. Add to that the fact that once I become somewhat familiar with one web tool, I find 28 new web tools. The new technology forces the old items over the dam, dragging me further and further down stream.

Splat. Yup. Back in Mud Creek.

Blogging: Not a newbie, but not an expert either

I don’t consider myself to be an expert in the blogosphere, but I wouldn’t categorize myself as a beginner either. I’ve used free blog offerings in the past – ie. BlogSpot, but about nine months ago switched over to WordPress.

For my purposes, I use and follow blogs that are done in a conversational style, are easy to read and aren’t overloaded with content. As a former newspaper editor, I relish white space and get overwhelmed if there’s too much going on. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into each post.

Personally, I set-up a family blog about five years ago as a means of saving money and not having to print hundreds of photos of my children to mail out to family members. Instead, I posted the pictures to the family blog and if family members wanted to print them off, then they had that option. I still use our blog for this reason. We had family pictures taken by my sister this past weekend and posted them to our blog for friends and family to see. We’ll make copies for grandparents and parents, but are happy not to be making 100+ copies of photos every time one of the kids does something adorable. We’re soon to have four kids so that’s a lot of photo prints!

As we entered into the adoption world, I realized how fantastic and educational following other families’ blog was so we started our own adoption blog, and later decided to merge previous blogs into one so everything is at www.kellibloomquist.com. We’re planning to blog while we’re in China next month to adopt our son, Blake. This will allow friends and family members to follow on our journey of a lifetime.
This is a recent picture that we received of our little guy last month. I can’t wait to love on him in a few weeks. We think he’s pretty handsome and are smitten.

Blogging : Scary, Intriguing, Unknown, …

Dear E745er of Fall 2012,

Yes, to me blogging feels like writing a letter/email to someone – at this point. As you can tell now, I don’t have any experience whatsoever with blogging, neither reading nor writing. However, I am familiar with the technical side of writing a post, creating a page, etc. (on wordpress at least) since I have an online portfolio there. But I don’t consider that to be a blog. So, let’s say, I am an absolute BB (Blogging Beginner).

However, after reading the works concerning blog literacy, it was just outpouring out of me, means, I wrote like 1000 words within a heartbeat, which I don’t even remember when that happened to me the last time. Normally, I really have to work for each 100 words I have to write. Anyways, in the following you just find my most important thoughts. But apparently something hit home.

To get started and acquainted to blogging, I would begin with reading others’ blogs. Alex Reid’s article provided a list of the top 25 blogs as of 2010. In the next week I will check some of those out and actually see for myself why they are considered to be so successful. Actually, I am wondering, how many of those would be still on that list today in our fast-paced time.

Blogging also is not like something been written in stone or even printed. I guess what I try to say is that a blog doesn’t necessary have the life span of a book or even a magazine, but it can. There are no parameters anymore about how long would a blog last.

Also, Alex Reid lets us remember in his definition of a blog that all the content published on the web, (even emails and chat) is stored on some servers somewhere in this world and can be reactivated in decades and centuries to come. Even though you might have wrote a blog for a specific audience, you can never be sure who your audience will be in the future, when they will read it and how they might interpret it. How can you be sure that your message will be understood the way you wanted it to be. But then again, Shakespeare comes to mind. Do you think he envisioned that centuries later his works are still being read?

Here’s another aspect of blogging: Since we don’t have to go through the hubs of finding a publisher and getting our works being edited, it seems everybody can write and publish – no education, no costs necessary. What I would like to ask the community of this blog (mmh, I guess I am adapting already to the ‘new’ medium), how do we find out about the credibility of the author? To answer this question myself: It is up to us. As always in life, we have to decide what to believe and whom to trust. My dad used to say, “Just because it is printed, doesn’t mean it is true”. That still applies. Just rephrase it a little. As professionals, as students in this program I consider us being lucky, since we have the education to distinguish between the different sources.

Does this sound all pretty negative, at least standoffish? Ok, let’s see, what are the good points? Because of the publishing format, a blog can be read, reviewed and commented on almost instantly. A real interaction with your audience is possible which is unique in my eyes. During my work, I always enjoyed working directly with customers, to see how they use the manuals produced for their specific needs. So this is definitely a plus. Also, I can reach people not only in my immediate physical setting, but also around the world. What is scary on one hand (not knowing who actually reads your blog) can be a real opportunity. You might reach people you thought you would have never access to. I guess, like always in life, it is all about the perspective on things. You can focus on the negatives or on the positives. Here is my promise: I will give my best to leave my fears behind, to actually overcome them and move forward into embracing the many facets of the digital age. But I know I will have to push myself.

Do Corporations Really Get Blogging?

I’m currently (informally) leading a team of people that reside in: England, Germany, Italy, China, Brazil, America, and Finland. None of the typical communication tools (email, webex, IM) could do what I needed them to do.  So, I set up a SharePoint community site for the team that has a blog.  I wanted to create a less formal environment for people to get comfortable with each other and loosen up.

The project that we’re working on requires people to be creative and take risks and that just doesn’t happen unless people feel safe.  Sharing new ideas–especially in a corporate environment with many cultures–is scary.  And, while all the corporate messages say that we need to be more innovative, we don’t really reward people for taking chances or slowing down to think about the future.  I guess it is one thing to say you value creativity and another thing to demonstrate that.

It reminds me of the Ken Robinson TED video that Alex Reid referred to in his article, Why Blog? Searching for Writing on the Web.  Robinson believes that while our schools are trying to maximize students’ potential, they are really killing creativity and valuing the wrong things.

I know that he is talking about schools, but I think it’s true in companies too.  It is in mine.  Maybe our schools have been so successful in quashing the creativity out of us that we can’t innovate to save our lives.

My hope was that blogging would help foster the right environment and rekindle that creativity, but I think I’m just doing it wrong.  I want to keep it loose, but somehow my posts end up reading like legal disclaimers.  I just don’t know what will fly.  Blogs are informal, but companies are not.  What is the right tone?

Zero experience with blogging

This is the first blog post I have ever written. I have heard of blogs, but have never had any reasong to particiapte in the act of blogging. At this point, writing on a blog site seems very similar to writing in the discussion board area of D2L. The primary difference (I think) is that when one posts to public blog on the internet, a broader audience may possibly read it. I am looking forward to learning more about how written communicaiton processses are changing as a result of these interactive writing portals where people can post thoughts and others may respond.

My (Somewhat Limited) Blogging Experience

Last semester, I took Rhetorical Theory (English 720) with Dr. Pignetti. In that course we used a blog for our reflection and discussion, which was my first academic experience with using a blog. Initially I was intimidated by the idea of airing my thoughts in such a public venue (particularly after reading the blog literacy articles), but it really wasn’t so scary after all. One thing I appreciate about using a blog rather than the D2L discussion board is the ease with which we can tie in relevant ideas, content, examples, etc. Including images and videos, for example, can help drive home the point you’re trying to make as you write and make for a much more interesting read. Basically, academic blogging allows for a more interactive, interesting, and dynamic experience.

My experience with blogging in my personal life has been more passive. I don’t write my own personal blog, or anything, but I do quite frequently read others’ blogs. I enjoy reading the blogs of my friends, family, and acquaintances as a way to keep up on their lives. I also appreciate blogs about cooking and do-it-yourself home projects. Annie’s Eats is one of my favorites in the realm of food, and I also just discovered Anne’s Food.

The blog literacy articles do a good job of highlighting the interactivity and sense of community blogging can build in an academic setting. I am looking forward to another academic blogging experience!

Blogging: This and That and Learning

My past experience with blogging has been limited to reading many, but authoring few. I enjoy the world of blogs very much: whether it be I am in need of a recipe (ThePioneerWoman.com), a pick-me-up (Incourage.me) or possibly just a laugh (Pinterest.com). Okay the last one isn’t a blog, and contains much more than just humor, but you get the gist: I like online content. Period. I like that it is small, bite-sized chunks of information on any topic you can think to enter into the search bar. What isn’t to like?

I also enjoyed learning via blogging with Dr. Pignetti’s Rhetorical Theory class this past spring. For me it was a very engaging way to learn and exercise newly forming thoughts on the subject matter. The interaction between students and their differing points-of-view made it all the more interesting.

This leads me into our reading Learning With Weblogs: Enhancing Cognitive and Social Knowledge Construction. The research preformed by Du and Wagner suggested that blogging enhanced the research subject’s learning in multiple ways. Included below are those I have personally witnessed:

• Students were more actively participating in their learning, which suggests better retention.
• The professor was able to more quickly identify students who were in need of additional help understanding subject matter and quickly respond.
• Students engage with other students via comments and from there grows a social aspect to learning.

Although blogging may not replace classrooms anytime too soon, (despite the predictions of Epic 2020) I certainly feel they have added to my learning experience. In addition, with plans to build on and include social media skills in my professional future, my résumé is also feeling the love.

I’ll end with a picture, just for the sake of saying I posted one… and yes, I found it on Pinterest.

Creative Inspiration.

 

Blogging inexperience and relating to Heidi Glick’s article.

The only blogging I have done is for Dr. Pignetti’s Rhetorical Theory course this past Spring.  I didn’t do very well because I was overscheduled and didn’t put as much time into it as I would have liked.  My classmates produced some very professional-looking, well-rounded posts, and mine were just blah.  I’m going to use the first part of my post to make sure I can figure out how to post photos and videos.

Ok, so I kind of figured out how to add a photo.  That’s my son, Tucker and our dog, Trooper. Pretty dadburn cute, eh?

And now to try a video…

This is taking longer.  My video is on Facebook and it won’t let me download it from there… Calling for backup (husband)… Backup is not helping.  Too bad, because it was going to be a cutesy video of Tucker at the pigeon park in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

I’ll go to my tried-and-true, although not very nice, video:

It’s only funny because the guy wasn’t permanently injured.  And because anyone who watches gymnastics is secretly hoping something like this happens.

And I just realized the caption in my above photo has left the building.  *sigh*  Pick your battles, girl.  Pick your battles.

In regard to our readings, I can relate to Heidi Glick’s article, Four Generations of Editors.  I am 33 years old.  My boss/stepdad/educational benefactor/person who generally runs my life is 71 years old.  He moved my family from Stevens Point eight years ago so I could work for him and put me through college.  Some days I have no idea why he did this, when it seems I can’t do anything right in his eyes.  He drives me absolutely nucking futs with what he thinks is important, and I’m sure he’s wondering what he has to do to get me to do things correctly.  It’s not just our age and the “times” in which we’ve grown up, which is the article’s main focus.  We butt heads most strongly when it comes to correspondence between our company and our customers.  Government contracting is not about “customer service” in the traditional sense.  It’s about delivering exactly what the contract calls for – no more, no less.  I completely understand this, in that we are not dealing with the general public and our pricing is carefully determined so that we are competitive yet still turn a profit.  However, he insists on writing letters that come across as very “snippy,” with overwrought legalese that I can’t imagine any recipient taking the time to figure out the actual message, and a demeaning tone.  He considers this the best way to get the recipient to respond in our favor, he has been doing it this way for 40 years, and he’s not going to change.  I prefer a more friendly, “we’re all on the same team, so let’s work together to get this done” approach to customer correspondence, which he sees as weak and ineffective.  I suppose we are editors, two generations apart.  In the end, he is the owner of the company, and my job is to do things the way he wants them.  Deep down I know he doesn’t completely disagree with everything I do, or he wouldn’t let me get anywhere near our company’s correspondence.

Also, it’s funny that the article specifically mentions double-spacing between sentences as antiquated.  As you can probably tell, I still use two spaces between sentences, and I’m not going to change it.  I think I sound like someone familiar…

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.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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: http://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).