To Blog or Not To Blog?

Ohh Blogging. When i first started this in January Blogs were this amorphous blobs. Who exactly blogs anyways? Week to week i added to my litle portfolio espanding my thoughts and opinions about where these posts come from. I'm just not sure if it's for me...

I don't like blogging regularly. I just can't bring myself to turn on the computer, suffer through password on password (always different for max. security) and then pouring my heart and soul onto a 20' screen. I just don't care enough. It's really neat to see how i've grown and what i've learned, but until i really feel the need to connect with others through the internet and blogs I think i'll just trot on over to my friend's room and share the newest tidbit of juicy celeb gossip...

That's all there is folks!

The Newest Froniter

My how things have changed... Techonlogy is moving so fast and so many different directions its hard to keep up -let alone know which direction to move in. There are so many different cool applications and new ways to use technology. One article suggests a site where you can find pictures other people took of you while on vacation. It's something i've thought of before:

When you're on vaction think of all the camera dodging, stopping, and haulting you do when everyone around you is taking pictures. Now think of how many you're in, maybe in the side of the frame, maybe even with a really irritated look on your face. Wouldn't it be great if you could look through everyone's pictures and find the ones you're in? I think so too...

Well, now with technology it could be possible. The main concern with all these new applicaitons and ideas is always going to be security. If so many things have changed from my parents time to mine, i would how much it will change by the time i'm 50.

Where You At?

Where You At? Boost Mobile's catch phrase can sum up over half of the phone conversations I have. Back in middle school and high school I would spend hours upon hours of time talking to people (mostly boys) on my house phone and later my cell phone. Now, I use my phone for txting people and to simply call them and find out where they are. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just use your phone to find out where all your friends are at? That was the premise of Boost Mobile's introduct of the Loopt Phone, where you could find out where your friends are at.



However, this was several years ago and the phenomenom has still yet to catch on. It seems like phone companies think now is that time...

I'm not sure how this is going to go, but it would pretty neat, in theory. If theres a way to eliminate or decrease the risk of stalkers and theieves this new gps technology will have a huge impact on the social lives of teenagers and tweens everywhere. I know it would be much easier to turn on a tracker to let my friends know where i am and that i'm bored. I wonder who would show up....

What do YOU think?

It seems like everyone on the internet has an opinion one way or the other. And they will not hesitate to tell you every intimate detail of what they think, why they think it and what you should do about it. This is a politican's dream, at least in terms of reading their public. The internet has became a huge forum and tool for the new candidates to gauge their audince and better yet, reach out to them. They are able to show they care about the younger, computer savy, generation and want to interact with them. In fact, the debates were broadcasted on youtube.com this year! I think that the internet has definatly helped the candidates reach the younger generation. Even if i missed the debates, i can go see watch them online whenever I want like a debate Obama and Clinton had in Ohio about healthcare.



These types of videos help the candidates reach more people and expand their influence and opinions to those who normally wouldn't know or understand them. The internet also allows anyone to post their own thoughts and opinions on how politicians are preforming their jobs and what and how they should go about changing their ways. This is good, as long as the person realizes not to take every morsel of advice literally.

The internet also enales funny videos like this is appear about our beloved candidates.

The Job of Finding a Job

Finding the right job is hard. Finding the employee is ever harder. This past summer I worked in the Human Resources department and helped my co-workers with the entire recruiting process. Reading resume after resumse is quite a task. Most are boring, unorgainzed and don't really give a clear view of the person. After reading about blogging for resumes, i've come to think it would be pretty helpful. Yes, you would first have to wade through the daunting stack of papers, but after narrowing down the candidates it would be a great resource to read about how the person works through projects, problems and everyday tasks.

However, I do think professional blogs have a drawback. You have to be careful how much information about specific projects and conflicts you expose. Most large companies have strict confidentialy contracts for employees. Also, an angry blog post about a boss or co-worker will always come back to haunt you.

If HR and recruiteres move towards personal/resume based blogs, people should be exteremly careful how they presnt themselves and the information they give out. You never know who is reading your blog

Is this my future?

I watched the 8 mintue EPIC video and found it to be very interesting and kind of scary. This whole social progression of news and interactive websites are changing our world very fast. The video takes place in 2014 and reviews history to see how we got to 'where we are today' (in 2014). To think about where we will be in 2014 is weird enough and then to hear about the future like it is the past is very strange.

It did make me think about how these websites such as Amazon, Google, and blogsites will change the future. Now, people don't need real news sources to stay tuned into the world. Instead, the internet allows users to connect to people who are invloved and around these actual stories. People are free to react to and discuss storeis are they evolve. Maybe someday soon traditional news sources will fade out.

Companies will be able to completely customize anything to fit anyone in the world. It is a very scary reality coming true with every new modification and specilization. I wonder how accaure the 2014 video will be once we reach 2014? Only time will tell

....Not Another Group Project!!

Virtual teamwork facilitates conversations and interactions between employees without the need for physcial proxiemity. For someone like my dad who tracels to three or four locations a week to meet with customers this might not be the best idea because a personel interaction is still needed to make and maintain solid customer realations. But for college students like me, this virtaul teamwork would help tremendously. As soon as the words group and project roll off a teachers tounge a collective groan escapes from the class. "Oh no! Not another group project!". It's not that we don't like to do them, it's that they are so hard to coordinate. Everyone has to be in the same place at the same time. This becomes espcially hard when you don't live on campus or you work. Virtual Teamwork could help us by elimnating the physical componant.

For businesses as well as students, there still needs to be enforced guildlines for those who want to use virtual teamwork such as being on time to the "meeting". Just because everyone isn't in the same location doesn't mean that you can sneak in late! Antoher worry would be group dynamics. Does anyone know each other before going in to the project? For a student project meeting in person once would be a good start and then progrossing towards virtual meetings would create a better working envirnoment. I'd really like to be able to try to do a project virtually and to see if it is, in fact, easier

Do I Know You?

Job searching is hard, it's something i am trying to tackle right now for a summer job. Luckily, I already have some contacts which make connecting easier, but for others corporate networking websites are the perfect jumping off point. Not only do they allow people to get their information out to the public, but they also help people see who is connected to whom. Perhaps you need a contact for a huge ballroom for a banquet, but the only people you can find are only willing to charge more than you hoped. However, using sites like Visable Path lets you see that your co-workers friend works for a company that can get you a super sweet discount! I can even use something like this in my sorority when we're looking for venues to have our Formal and Crush parties.

There have always been Monster.com and other online resume posting sites. Now, even these are becoming more high tech. A site called Visable Path lets you look at your company's orgainization and networks. Another site, LinkedIn allows users to post their resumes (for a fee) and lets company's conduct different searches. A really neat thing they do as well is let companies search resumes even if the people are not activily searching for a new job. This allows people the option to change jobs if a better fit comes along.

I definalty think these sites are worth checking out (Visable Path)and are something that will hopefully come in handy in my future!

The Red Solo Cup

Facebook-my life before college. I got a facebook account the summer before freshman year of college. I was so excited to look up all the new boys in girls in the class of 2010! I browsed randomly facebook stalking my fellow classmates, looking for the "cool kids". These were the kids whose profile picture was either a pretty prom picture or a picture of themselves holding the ever present red solo cup.

As the summer progressed I was friended by random people that i didn't know. I was actually worried at one point because I thought I wouldn't have any friends at school because I didn't have as many facebook friends or look as cool as all these other kids.

After arriving at school, I reconized my new "friends" around campus, but could never bring myself to say anything to them. I mean we were friends right? Wrong! Facebook and other online profiles allow users to protray themselves in anyway they like. After a break up you can look like you don't care that your ex just stepped all over your heart because you have a picture up with 15 of his closest friends all around you. Check out this youtube video, it's all about these guys who revamp their myspace pages to attract girlfriends



While some people use these profiles to impress people they know, many other people can gain access to these same pictures. Your online reputation preceeds you and so do these images. For my sorority, we take down all of our pictures where we look too intoxicated or any other ones that we wouldn't want an employers or a grandmother to see. I'm glad we do this because it makes me asses how I look to other people. Maybe holding the red solo cup in every picture is a bad idea.

Virtual Me

Back in 7th and 8th grade I was obsessed with the computer game The Sims. Even before everyone else caught on to the craze I was the first one in school to kill off my first sim family and to master the "sim ese" gibberish language. I bought every single expansion pack, addition and anxiously awaited The Sims 2 which gave sims genetics to pass on to future generations! I was obsessed. The only expasion pack that never really caught my interest was The Sims Online. The thought of interacting with greasy old men and hype active eight year olds in the game did not appeal to me in the least. I read all the new press relaeases and even heard about Second Life through these research sessions I would have.

I remember many people questioning how Second Life and similar virtual realities would suceed. I didn't think people would actually be willing to spend real money to buy virtual land and cars. Who would do that? Well apparently many people would...and do. After reading more about Second Life i've come to realize it is much more than a virtual reality for people to meet and talk. The business implications of networking alone are amazing! I still don't know everything about Second Life, but i'm really excited about it! It seems like the grown up version of The Sims. Instead of 'winning' the game (whcih, by the way, is impossible in The Sims), you can "win" at real life by making business deals, connections and even before a virtual Millionaire!

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Here is a link to a really cool blogger in my class...shes the best

Jessica's Blog

Technorati Profile

Some Generated Content from a User

"User Generated Content" what is that? Some sort of risque XXX rated material? I had no idea what to think of this week's reading assignments except to be slightly excited. "Oooh, it's like Wikipedia and all those sites anyone can update...buzz kill". Still, user generated content is a very new and interesting topic. We're not sure how it is exactly it will affect us, but we know it already has.

I was a late bloomer in the wikipedia world. I'd heard peope talk about it, but we were never formally introduced until I came to college. In one class, two of my friends were talking about how they changed the definition of a word to be their friend's name. This lasted for about a nanosecond and a half before someone in Japan changed it back. But this made me think...can we really change the facts on the internet? Can a few people change the facts? Ever since then i've been wary of sites that allow changes, but after these readings i understand that they can be very useful to the website and the rest of us.

Even though some people have a problem with the exact term "User Generated Content" (get over it) I think it's a really interesting idea. Obviously Wikipedia and YouTube have been very sucessful in getting and maintaining users. Others, like Current TV are struggling to gain and keep viewers. The YouTube is. CurrentTV might be a simple fact that people don't like to watch certain clips and want the power to move on to the next one. Overall though, why do some user genertaed sites do much better than others? Your guess is as good as mine...for the time being, I might need to change that statement later on.

This is a job for all the lonely people

I think that Crowdsourcing is a neat idea...in theory.

It is nice to think that crowdsourcing gives people the chance to earn money and occupy their tie by doing tasks that need human processing skills to complete. I think about the elderly that aren't physically able anymore, but their minds are collecting cobwebs with the forced inactivty. With crowdsourding they are able to look at websites and find duplicates and keep their minds active. They are able to earn a little bit of money (a handful of cents per find) for their efforts.

Crowdsourcing does not seem to be a great source of income and seems almost too much work for the little pay. It's scary to think that these could be used as sole sources of income. I don't think this would really become a reality because the Crowdsouce-er would have to already own or have access to a computer and the internet. So poor families, imigrants, and kids can't only rely on crowdsourcing as a steady flow of income.

I really like the idea of crowdsourcing as a hobby or a past time. Not as a real/only job.

To Blog or Not To Blog

Blogging is very new for me. I've always read about blogs in Cosmo Magazine and heard about them from other people, but never felt the need to broadcast my daily life and ponderings for the entire world to read. It's a concept that has never appealed to me, but to millions and millions of people-it works.

I see blogs as a dairy or journal. Many people keep journals of the day's events, worries and hopes for the future in a small little book they keep beside their beds. They might even write down dreams they had the night before or their thoughts about the latest presidential election. The difference between journals and blogs, however, is that blogs are flung out into cyberspace with the click of a button. Then, anyone with access to a computer or cell phone are able to access your habits, thoughts, and dreams.

Why publish these personal ideas for anyone? I think it is because no one wants to feel like they are alone; the only one going through what they are. They need someone else, regardless if they live in a differnt town, state, or continent, to verify their own thoughts and actions. Do people feel similar? Does someone really understand what i've been going through? Bloggers are all looking for the same thing; someone to care enought to read their posts and respond with their own.

For me, blogging is not something I will continue. I'd rather keep my tiny blue journal by my bed and choose who I share them with. But for all those bloggers out there...blog on...blog on

Social Networks Diagrams: Helpful or a Waste of Time?

I went through a whole range of reactions to the ideas the articles presented about social networks. At first I was annoyed at the idea and thought it was was a waste of time and enegry to say something everyone already knew about. But as I kept reading both articles presented good points and examples to show me some of the benefits of drawing out social networks.

I read two articles about social networking were both published in the Harvard Business review. When I began reading the first article "Poeple who make orgainizations go-or stop" I was put off by the idea of activly drawing out a social network diagram. I thought it was very unnessicary and not nessicarily related to business activites. Since these social netorks are already in place why do you need to identify them? The people involved already know who to go to for specific problem, why spend all the time and money making a pretty little picture to show it? Social networks always have been and will be a part of businesses, and i think it is the responsibilty of the employee with the problem to figure out the solution. Either it means they must go to their boss or their peers to find out how to fix it. Thats the reason WHY you have a boss, someone to make sure you're doing your job correctly, and your peers, people who do that same thing you do!

However, When I got to the section about the Central Connectors my mind began to change. They not only have to deal with their own work, but also troubleshoot for anyone else who comes to them. Even though the company doesn't detail this duty in their job description, most people wouldn't just turn away a peer when they have a problem. I wouldn't! They must balance their own duties and how much they help others. After reading about that I began to think that because some companies are now able to see the social networks and understand how people interact, they are more understanding to those who work becomes harder and work load increases because they must still do their own jobs and still help others. I also thought the idea about giving some people incentives (prizes/bonuses) was a good idea.

The second article I read, "A practical guide to social networks" built on the first one. In this article I had already begun to change my mind about social networks in the workplace and began thinking that maybe, in SOME companies, drawing a diagram and understanding how they work might be beneficial. As i kept reading the article gave me examples of situations when specific social networks are benefical. Some companies must react quickly to situations and need to have a social network in place.

I'm glad I read both of the articles because I went into them with one opinion and came out with an idea of certain situations where drawing social networks are a good idea.

Day One

Hello! Welcome to my thoughts. I will be blogging my reactions, thoughts, and opinions for class for the semester. Just so you know, "On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own". Ok, well now that that is taken care of I can move on to the next part of this assignment. Don't worry, there will be lots more later.