The Power Of OFF

As a note, I would like to preface this blog entry that this is my final entry for my ITEC-333 course at American University. Since having been a member of the class, I have learned much, but rather than make an "academic" entry, I would am going to reflect.

This semester, I have done a great deal of reflecting. Much of that has been caused by the onslaught of my schedule. Not thinking, I decided to take 17 credits (the full course load at AU before having to pay extra for extra credits) in taking all the classes that I needed, and a 12 week internship (first 10 hours per week are for my internship, and the next 15 are for pay). I literally have little time and when I can find time to whatever, I am exhausted. I cannot function. The result? I followed many people of my sad generation and would buy an energy drink or coffee. Thus, I started my caffeine addiction. If colleges or professionals wanted to make buckets of money, they would offer caffeine rehab...sad as that sounds it is true because I can think of not one college student that "dopes up" on caffeine. My generation can be termed the ADD Generation because of our constant need to be plugged in to the Internet/other media vehicles and the expectance of instant gratification (usually via communication). If a text message, picture message, instant message, email, etc. does not come back within seconds, the sender usually gets alerted. But, they only get worried if their other 5 instant messages are unanswered, and they cannot load the current YouTube video they are trying to watch while playing video games, and...writing that paper. That's pathetic.

Now as I say how sad that is, I too do the same. If it were not for my roommate who was recording a project via audio, I would be blasting music, talking on the instant messaging function of Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger contemporaneously. That's not to mention writing this blog entry and checking emails, while sipping on a Diet Red Bull or likely substitute. Did I mention that I am currently receiving text messages 25 minutes before events onto my phone from my Google Calendar? This all bears the following question:

WHEN DOES IT SHUT OFF?!?!

Forget fancy technology, for a minute, let's look at another aspect of life: advertisements. How ironic is it that I am a marketing minor? We look around us and I think the number that I heard was that we see 8000 advertisements everyday (some steep number). We tune most of them out. How much more clutter can we put in our life?

Forget boyfriends/girlfriends/it-friends/spouses/wives/husbands/etc., when do we have time for ANYTHING? EVERYTHING seems to suffer as a result. We pay bills. I should know this best because that is one of the things that I do in my apartment for my roommates besides clean up their messes (not fun).

So liberal folks try to make a "no technology week" and the result is that kids say "we cannot survive!" PATHETIC!

Now let's look at the future: dismal. More distractions. More ways to take time. More of a chance for caffeine sales to sky rocket. Seriously, is this what we wanted? Social networking is nice, but at the expense of so many other things?

Great! Now I sound like some liberal, no shoe-wearing, pot smoking, dirty hippy (it is here that I would like to endorse the fact that I do NOT approve of the usage of drugs, not wearing shoes, being dirty, and most importantly, being a hippy). Me being the aforementioned could not be further from the truth. But I do believe that if someone does not stop soon, we could be in for disaster.

My trip to Israel in two weeks might be an amazing time, not because of the potential that it holds, but because I will be truly disconnected. I overbooked myself 100% this semester, which was my fault, but overbooking is a common thing to do because we are so used to being overwhelmed.

This is me signing off, to do 20 million other things all at the same time. As much as I just want to crawl under a rock and party like it is 1999 [BCE], I know that I will just have to suck it up and my Diet Red Bull...

St. Augustine's Two Cities [Revised, 2nd Ed.]

If The Digital Emperor Has No Clothes, maybe it is time that we find them for him (or being forced to be politically correct, "her"). Andrew Keen, Stephen Colbert, and myself are all "elitist" because we worry about UGC. As stated nicely by Keen,

"I’ll always trust the expertise of a Harvard professor over an anonymous blogger or a high school Wikipedia editor. And if that makes me a believer in an elitist meritocracy, then so be it."

I thought to myself a minute about that quote, and realized the implications: we are breeding a dumb generation. The reason for this is simple: knowledge is passed from one generation to the next (look at history, the winner's always [re]write the books). Living in the ADD Generation , we want our answers NOW, not in 10 minutes. We want to find them as quickly as possible (INTERNET). Wikipedia, though "outlawed" by many academic institutions, is becoming the standard for fast, useful information (that has potential to be inaccurate) [as a side note, I find it funny that this is being written right next to the "Wikipedia Widget" I have on my sidebar on my blog, and have purposefully titled -- as a joke -- "The ACADEMIC Search"]. We are heading to a dangerous place...

So where else are we headed? We are headed, like St. Augustine of Hippo wrote about, Two Cities (though not of Man nor God):

The Over-Idealistic City:
According to websites and blogs such as Changemakers and Fatdoor's Blog, social networking and capitol should be that warm fuzzy feeling that one gets when they realize that their Blackberry just connected to a place to donate money to a homeless organization (because they saw 7 people on a block looking for change). Then, I'll get a text message that Edna, age 85, who doesn't have enough money to provide for her medications, needs help moving out. So I will high tail it over there to help her out once I leave the soup kitchen, where I was working. Then, I can go to Rethos.com and use social networking to find non-profit organizations. Ah, the power of the liberals in us all! Let's all go make a difference!

The REAL City:
Are you serious? Let's be honest, this is America: we only care about our self-serving interests and needs and do not understand the economic ramifications of spending an extra 50¢ on guacamole at Chipotle instead of helping a homeless person to get a meal, which could save his/her life, and in turn who could possibly save another's life (and thus pay it forward mentality). What? Edna needs help moving out? Edna is not in my family and just had a hip and knee replacement? I'm not helping her out, but I SURE will help out Cristina, the 26-year old hot Mexican girl who is trying to move in and has a sexy accent. I'll even make her food for her moving in...and what? she doesn't have a boyfriend (and I'm single)? Then I am DEFINITELY helping her move in. Bye Edna...

Now that I'm done reflecting society while sounding like a self-loathing a-hole, it really is truly sad. Change is inevitble, and hopefully it is to a place where education, helping out one's neighbor (regardless of looks, etc.), helping out the poor (but the whole "you can feed a man for a day, but if you teach him how to fish he'll have food for the rest of his life...and sit in a boat and drink beer" philosophy). It might very well be that the Internet, UGC and social networking, as attractive as it all sounds, will be our very destruction. I'm interested to see how others feel...

Effective Polarization

In an interview titled Expert Voices: How The Web Polarized Politics, between Debra D'Agostino and Gerry McGovern, Mr. McGovern brings up a genius point which often does not get much consideration:

"You're saying the Web can cause society to become more politically polarized than it already is?

It can. Think about it: They say 45 percent of Americans are democrats, 45 percent are republican, and 10 percent are independent. Can the Internet really undermine that polarization? It would be lovely to think it could. But more often then not, when democrats write blog entries, they are speaking to other democrats. I am curious to find how many hardcore republicans turned democrat as a result of the Web. I don't suspect there are many."

Thinking about that, consider the implications: everyone always mentions how they are trying to tap into resources such as Facebook and Myspace (among other social networking websites) to attract people to a certain product or service. Using streaming videos and other features of Web 2.0, companies are trying to further promote their products. The same is true about politics, but typically people are so involved into their parties that it separates society even farther. Sure, a Republican might go onto a Democrat's page for counterpoints, but with Web 2.0, it appears as if very few are actually being converted to the other party. On one hand, if a person is very solidified in a certain party, they will not budge (unless there is some catastrophic event), meaning that the main target audience of these pages are those people caught in the middle. But each party needs more voting members and supporters, so it also appears that with the multimedia, socially networked pages are targeting opponents. At the same time, they seem to get supporters of their own party excited for the campaign race. So who are they really targeting? Have these websites really lost their focus, especially with the usage of Web 2.0, rendering them ineffective? Surely, they bring all the latest news to the forefront of the page, but is it helping?

"Yet technology is so often heralded as a way to bring people together, to improve collaboration and make it easier to share views and opinions.

Tom Standage's book, The Victorian Internet, talks about how the telegraph was supposed to do just that. The big problem in the world had been the inability to communicate quickly over long distances. So along comes the telegraph, and it's supposed to bring about an era of peace and harmony. And what happened in the height of all that? World War I.

It's easy to get carried away with this Wired magazine view of "All You Need is Web 2.0," but in some ways the very technology that is meant to solve problems merely makes people more emotional—not more reasonable. We ultimately do a disservice to society by creating this euphoria about what technology can really deliver."

Alas, that seems to sum up the problem nicely.

Some examples of 2008 Presidential candidates include:

Bill Richardson
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
John Edwards
Rudy Giuliani

Mr. Gladwell's Recruitment

The other day I was having a conversation with someone that reminded me of the readings for this week. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: "You know, I sometimes don't know why I'm in college. I mean, I'm majoring in audio technology, but anyone could do that and most do not go to college. Sometimes I think I'm wasting a lot of money."
Other person: "Well just think of all the connections you are making and the ability you'll have to be recruited. That's what it is all about. Plus, you are learning a lot."

Though the last part of that statement is extremely true, I would be lying if I said the first thing that I thought of was NOT my last blog entry (Graduating From Facebook To LinkedIn). My other thought went towards, as described in the article The Power Of Weak Ties, was about UVa's Malcolm Gladwell. More specifically, it was in regards to The Tipping Point, which points out how people are connected to each other. People are either mavens or connectors. According to the Wikipedia entry about The Tipping Point, the following is true:

"Connectors are those with wide social circles. They are the "hubs" of the human social network and are responsible for the small world phenomenon. Mavens are knowledgeable people. While most consumers wouldn't know if a product were priced above the market rate by, say, ten per cent, mavens would."

The result is that through mavens and connectors, one can understand how the concept of six degrees of separation is played out. One of the results is American University's Information Technology 333 (Social Networking) course. Another deals with job recruitment. As the article The Power Of Weak Ties points out, referrals are the reason most jobs are acquired. Is this fair? I don't know, ask Colleen. One thing is for sure: keep Facebook, Myspace, (etc.) and your blog void of anything you would NOT want your [potential] boss to see. That is outlined in the article Blog Is The New Resume. Companies are always talking about how social networking and blogs could become the new method for recruitment (see Using Social Networking To Fill The Talent Acquisition Pipeline).

Thinking over the conversation I had with my friend the other day, I guess it is truer than I thought; we DO go to college/university to get not only more education but really the connections. People at that education point can most likely teach themselves much of the material, but they connections are harder to come by.

Graduating from Facebook to LinkedIn

This could be the best week of articles thus far. If there is one thing that any college student reads, it is the article "Networking for students, a step-by-step guide". It gives so many helpful recommendations to the college student about what to say and do to better improve their networking skills. The best part of the article is where it states:

"A final note: it’s not FaceBook...
In some respects, college students are already pros at networking – at least casual, social networking. It’s critical, however, to shift into a professional networking mode when your career is the issue at hand."

Though Facebook can be used for networking, this makes a lot of sense because there are so many things that college students usually do not want their employer to be able to see. While it is easiest to just remove a lot of those things, the program LinkedIn is excellent. Not only does it allow one to view their network/people one is connected to, but it allows him/her/it to find more professional people in the same/related field, and make recommendations. The article "It's Not Just Who You Know"
does a good job of explaining this. Other companies include Jigsaw and Ziggs. Of all the articles that I have seen, LinkedIn seems to be the most mentioned, which is important since it is about who you know and the larger these services are, the chance of making new business contacts is increased.

In the article "Fifteen Uses of Professional Profiles within the Enterprise", the obvious advice is good because it mentions how one should use it to show off work.

These programs/services are also good for finding professors to brown-nose them for an A or to figure out what classes to take.

Especially for me, going into the music/movie industry, the quality of work almost falling behind connections, it appears as if I will have to fall victim that that annoying adage, "it's not what you know but who you know" while I invest in these networking programs heavily.

Collaborative Employees

if this comes off harsh, it is because the Cleveland Indians, my team, just blew it big time...

Most people like to be around other people. They like to be socially active and form bonds. Those bonds get more complicated and form networks. Networks soon spread from within one's area and reach outwards, becoming regional, to national, to international and finally global. Thus, it should be no exception to the rule that work should evolve from being mainly independent (with some exceptions) to collaborative (those exceptions can include musicians and sports teams). Programs as basic as Google Docs, and more complicated such as Basecamp, can allow for collaborative work. In an article titled Working Together...When Apart lists out 10 techniques to NOT violate these group dyanmics. Using Placeware, Microsoft's latest acquisition, Microsoft is attempting to follow suit and set up online meetings. Everything has become about "the greater good", and collaboration. Whether it works or not is up for debate, but what is not, is that it is the future. Another cool collaborative program is Google Calendar which allows you to see other people's calendars. Depending on settings, I'm pretty sure that you can edit them too.

But looking back at the article Working Together...When Apart, all of the 10 online collaboration techniques seem so obvious and like things that should happen in the real world as well as online. Some examples include "Assign tasks that are challenging and interesting"; "Ensure the task is meaningful to the team and the company"; and, "When building a virtual team, solicit volunteers as much as possible."

Individualism is the past and collaboration is the future...there's no way around it and no way to avoid it, for better or worse...

YAY! NOW we are ALL Celebrities

Why is Kevin Federline...excuse me, K-Fed, so famous? Simple: paparazzi. Their infectuous disease is everywhere. Now, that disease has been transferred to MySpace, Facebook, and more or less in general: the Internet. In case I didn't care enough about what Jessica Simpson did in her free time, now I can worry about what I do in my spare time. I have to worry about the internet paparazzi coming back to haunt me down the road. How many people have pictures of illicit drug use? Underage drinking? Anything else that could haunt your career? Either way you are/can be front page news.

And yet, why use Facebook? Why use MySpace? I don't know but i do both. They are almost social norms and necessary, otherwise you are an outcast. We joke amongst my friends that we cannot be friends in real life unless we are friends on Facebook. Yet, I don't want the whole world knowing what I'm doing...or do I? No, I tell myself, I don't. I HATE all of those magazines that are meant to create gossip yet have a high profit margin. Reality check: WHO CARES WHAT CELEBRITIES DO IN THEIR FREE TIME? I DON'T! Guess what? They slip up and make mistakes too!

So, naturally humans have created programs to clean up profiles. One, for instance, is called Reputation Defender. There is a fee associated with the service. While the service sounds nice, Uncle Mike can save you money while not using it (though you do lose the benefits of social networking): DELETE YOUR PROFILE! DELETE YOUR SCREEN NAME! LIVE UNDER A ROCK! I guess I'll just have to learn to live with the fact that my life is always on the line. So much for running for President.

Blogging and social networking are just proof though that your online reputation supercedes your actual reputation. GREAAAAAAT. JUST what I needed.

Exceptions To The "Rules"...

There was one point in one of the articles with which I could not get myself to agree. Charles Kadushin, in talking about distance between nodes, wrote "Though I am well enmeshed in a given group, I have one friend across the country who is a member of another well clustered group." Then, as a footnote, one can find, "Whether this friend is a close friend or someone I do not know very well is part of the 'strength of weak ties'...that is, someone I am not close to." (Kadushin, 12) First off, that point seems to render itself useless at first glance: "...a close friend..." and then "'strength of weak ties'...that is, someone I am not close to." Some of my close friends come from across the country or do not live in near proximity to myself. I have friends who go to schools such as in Delaware, and though that is only a couple hours north, we have remained close. To say something such as since he lives a few hours away, I don't affect his circle -- which is what these passages seem to indicate -- are preposterous. Some of my best friends go to schools in Boston (8 hour drive away from me) and in Virginia (several hours away). Is that to say because we are not in the same "neighborhood" that the connections are weak? Together we all form a strong network, all playing as central people in a mutual relationship. Another person in this group lives in Atlanta and goes to school nearby (a 10 to 11 hour drive), and is that to say that they are on the peripheral level? Absolutely not. I am closer with some of the people now that they are NOT in my neighborhood as compared to when they were. We all live in different neighborhoods.

One could say that because of the Internet we have all remained close, but that would be a lie too. Though we use instant messenging clients, email, and VOIP (including video chat), we mainly have phone conversations. But this is subject for another post...

I don't believe though, that I am the only exception to the rule...

Cross, Rob, Nitin Nohria, and Andrew Parker. "Six Myths About Informal Networks -- and How To Overcome Them." MIT Sloan Management Review 43, 3(2002): 69.

Kadushin, Charles. "Introduction to Social Network Theory." 17 Feb 2004 1-60. 09 Sept 2007 .