The Ubiquity of Social Media

Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that smart phones became the rage? And only really since that time that Facebook and twitter have achieved household status, now everyone is posting blogs. It is amazing just how quickly our vernacular has changed. And it is even more amazing the lack of uniform understanding of these new words in our vocabulary.

Many believe social media simply means keeping your status updated on Facebook or making catty remarks on Twitter. What so few truly understand is that social media is not only much more than that, it is the basis for a new generation of communication.

Forget about Facebook for a minute--as that site is mostly for recreational networking--start thinking about Twitter. My first thought was that Twitter was simply an outlet for people with too much time on their hands to shout to the world their opinions on everything, anything and nothing.

Clearly I was just following the wrong tweets. Personally, I follow the NPR tweet as news is often released there before it is announced anywhere else. I also follow tweets from authors and researchers in the field of learning and technology, sales and marketing and other areas of interest to me. These tweets are informative. They tell me where I can find additional information. They lead me to other sites of great interest to me. So for those of you who thought tweeting a waste of time, why don't you tweet yourself and see first hand?

Blogging is another social media tool people often fail to understand. First among whom are the bloggers themselves. A recent discussion thread on a social media sub-group of Linked-in, someone asked the question, why do people blog?  They may as well have asked why do people speak? For those on the blog bandwagon, many have found it to be an excellent creative outlet for their thoughts and reflections. It also does something no other mass media tool has been able to do. And that is to give voice to the man (or woman) on the street. Before Web 2.0 and blogging technology became available, there were few opportunities to really be heard outside your own small social network. But through the power of blogger, my voice is heard all over the world. Granted my audience is small, yet they hail from six different countries and three continents. And of these, most are regular readers, showing up as page views multiple times in my stats page. Not so shabby for a lil ol' gal in Iowa.

Finally, I have to mention Linked In. This may be one of the most valuable tools of all. This site which is designed for career networking has little patience for the type of postings one might see on Facebook. People on Linked In are pretty serious about their involvement and most join multiple groups related to their career, area of expertise, or research interests. Within these groups one can participate in discussion threads that again involve people from all across the globe. This morning I had a great conversation with a gentleman from Dubai for example on social media trends.

Am I naive to be so excited about these tools? Part of me will allow that I have all the enthusiasm of a newbie, the other part recognizes that these tools and others we have not yet discovered are fundamentally changing our world, making it smaller, more collaborative and hopefully more peaceful in the long run.

Until next time

Technology: Do we use it just because we can? Does it matter if it's useful?

The country is atwitter regarding the new screening machines that show a person's skin and body parts...the debate as I see it is two-fold. First, there is some evidence that the advanced imaging technology does nothing to prevent attacks. With this evidence in mind, is it an appropriate use of time and resources to even be using the technology.

The second part of the debate revolves around privacy issues vs. Public safety. Just how much are we willing to undergo in order to ensure the highest level of airplane safety.

Chris Mathews brings up a good point...one he has made before; if we get hit again (with a terrorist attack) the level of airport security will become more intrusive than we can even imagine today. So what do we do? Err on the side of personal privacy (an entirely western concept by the way)? What happens if we do suffer an attack? Who will we then blame?

Something to think about as we plan our holiday travel in this brave new world with such people in it...

Another dinosaur bites the dust

Let your fingers do the walking.  Anyone who grew up in the '70s and '80s has heard that tag-line originally introduced by Ma Bell. Well it looks like the phone book will be the next medium to travel the way of all flesh as phone companies announce they will no longer be printing residential phone books.
According to the Associated Press, in the past month alone, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania approved Verizon Communications request to quit distributing residential white pages.

With telephone companies now arguing that consumers are more likely to check the internet rather than flip through the phonebook, they are not acknowledging the same is true of yellow pages.

But take it from this career advertising guru...it won't be long before the business model for hard copies of yellow pages follow the trend already set by the newspaper industry.  If people would rather check the internet for residential listings, why in the world would they prefer flipping through yellow page ads rather than performing an internet search--which can actually yield more relevant information, faster.

Reach out and touch someone

New web 2.0 technologies have given me the opportunity to stay close to my family in ways I never thought possible.
Last night I enjoyed a long catch up with 2 of my nieces and one of my nephews on tokbox.com.
For those of you clinging to 20th century modes of communication, tokbox.com offers free on-line video conferencing. So armed with a laptop with a camera, several people can participate with each person represented on the screen along with the caller. Clarity is good, only occasional "freezes". And of course, in line with web 2.0 guidleines, it is free!

I was able to use even more free technology to video capture our conversation using Jing. Jing allows for free video and/or audio capture of your computer screen. It is limited to five minute increments but that is no problem...just do five minute sections!

Today I had a skype conversation with my brother-in-law that I was also able to capture on Jing. Then I was able to upload these videos to my Any Video Converter program I had downloaded free from the Internet to convert them to .avi files so I can edit them with Windows Movie Maker--another essentially free program.

So now, armed with interviews and old video I converted from VHS, along with 100's of pictures that I will edit on piknic.com--you guessed it a free online photo editor--I will combine these elements for a mashup video of my family story. It should be interesting!!!

Until next time!!

Going viral

With the speed with which technology is changing these days it's no wonder that we went from the first iPhone only about 3 years ago (yes, I know, eons in the digital world!) to affordable smart tablets like the iPad achieving ubiquity in it's first 9 months on the market!
I have previously remarked on the brilliance of the negotiation between iPad and CBS television network where Ipads can be found in every storyline that makes sense...essentially any storyline that is.
Now the e-trade baby can be found secretly checking his stocks on his iPad during a "timeout"!
In both of these case a, iPad is not mentioned, simply used has one would use any other communication tool...creating a culture in which it's natural to pull out one's iPad to face life's daily challenges! Somewhere around 9 million of them have been sold since April 2010--that may not seem like a lot but it took DVR devices more than 10 years to achieve that level of US penetration.
When technology fundamentally changes how we communicate, adoption is rapid. For technology that is simply cool, it can take much longer. Herein,lay the fundamental challenge facing new technological development in the 20th century. Technology must be cool, affordable, and fundamentally change critical methods of communication in order to go viral! If it has these three elements it's destined for success!

A temporary step back into the dark ages!

Ok, something happened to me today that deserves discussion in our 21st century world of instant everything!  First, as I generally do on payday, I woke up this morning and checked my bank balance to ensure my direct deposit had been properly posted to my account. In addition to my normal paycheck, today I was also expecting a rather large distribution from an old ESOP to post to my account as well. Imagine my surprise and distress when I discovered by balance showed a balance of $0.42!!!

I went to work and checked with our business manager, who was not much help. I then called my bank. Apparently due to a new vendor, none of the debits or credits from the previous night had posted to ANYONE's account. It took just about the entire day to fix the problem making me wonder how I was going to buy gas, or get cash for the weekend.

At lunch I went to the post office on a quest for stamps. I had only cash. I went to the Automatic Postage Machine only to find that it did not take cash. So, I found myself paying the price, in terms of my time, for using cash. I found myself standing in line at the post office to buy stamps.

Who does that???

The other side of the coin on healthcare

Yesterday I wrote about the general hypocrisy regarding "access" to healthcare. But today I suggest we look at the other side of the coin.

With all the amazing technology that has been developed in the bio-med field, cures for certain diseases as well as disease management tools are now available that were not a mere ten years ago. However, these new technologies are not free and are more often than not, prohibitively expensive.

So the question becomes "at what cost to society, are these treatments worth the cost?". I am not talking about rationing healthcare. I am talking about the difference in spending $100k+ on a cancer treatment that will extend the life of a 75 year-old by a few months, vs. using the same money to restore an individual's mobility for up to 20 years or longer so that individual might be a productive member of society.

Not to say that cancer treatments are not valuable as they often lead to a better understanding of the disease and new tools with which to treat it.

There is an underlying cost to society under both scenarios; are either or both worth it?

I wonder what you think?