The End of the Year

I'd like to take a moment to pause and reflect on everything we've learned - Analytics, LinkedIn, Facebook, search engine optimization, Second Life, and many more topics. Where did this semester go?

As a graduating senior this has only served to reinforce the roles of various social networking sites in my life. Sure, there are some helpful networking areas on Facebook, and I even caught site of a very interesting Online Media networking group on Facebook, but really - it's Facebook. It's too personal, too casual, and often, people make it too incriminating (you'd be amazed at the photos people are capable of posting). Besides, as we learned through that rather revealing mirror exercise, it's not necessary as private as we think.

I've been scouring LinkedIn most days, not to mention doing all the research I can using the more suitable methods (as in, not Facebook) in order to pursue job opportunities. My thesis has been hogging up most of my time but the Internet really has changed the way we market ourselves, market our companies, and the way we find job offers. I know too many people who have found great jobs on Craigslist or just by Googling the right person rather than using the application process.

From Anywhere in the World

Ever hear the expression "Small world" if you happen to see a friend in a place by coincidence? In no time is this more pronounced than now because of the remarkable capabilities of the Internet. Thanks to Google Analytics, we know that people can access our seemingly inconspicuous blogs from all corners of the world - going out on a limb, it would seem reasonable to say that nobody is expecting to have a far reaching audience - at least for now. While I haven't had many plugs for this blog outside of class other than a memorable acknowledgment from a PR specialist I wrote about, I do have another blog - which is now defunct.

I actively promoted it for a while since it was about video game news, and Google Analytics (which I had only a cursory knowledge of prior to this class) showed me some startling hits: One from China, one from Saudi Arabia, one from Sweden, and one from the Philippines. Video games are certainly a worldwide topic, but I wasn't expecting people from the Philippines to read some self-important freelance blogger's ravings about Mass Effect 2!

Everything is available in a way we never experienced before due to the Internet. Whether it's Wikipedia, Google, or Dogpile (do people still use that?), we live in an era where information is so open and so available that it's everywhere at once. We've seen it on both ends of the political spectrum - tea party activists have discovered the Federalist papers and the Constitution online, while massive coalitions over Facebook, Twitter, and other parts of the Internet helped lead President Obama to the White House.

Analytics and Web Optimization

I have a confession to make - despite my technical know-how when it comes to hardware and my high level of proficiency when it comes to navigating cyberspace, as well as my knowledge of Internet culture, I came into this class with no concept of what Google analytics or web optimization meant. To me, Internet marketing seemed limited to banners, corporate websites and blogs, and Facebook and Twitter satellite branches (if you will). I had an idea of how people pay a search engine like Google to come up as a higher result on searches, but that was all I knew.

From this relatively simple concept, a litany of possibilities has emerged, as our reading demonstrated. Take a look at just one of the best examples: Wikipedia. Do a little experiment for me - type in any random noun. Right now, any noun at all. Sears Tower, crab cake, Eddie Murphy, whatever. Was the Wikipedia entry the second entry after maybe the main web page about the topic itself, or even the top entry? I can assume there's a 95% chance it was in the top five.

One interesting concept with Internet marketing is how fantastic it is for sites like Wikipedia that deal with extensive amounts of information. It means that more people have the opportunity to discover Wikipedia through a seemingly unrelated topic, and it is why Google analytics is so important.

The job search - going it alone

As a senior, I'm spending an increasing amount of my time in the job hunt - not the summer internship job hunt (which has admittedly gotten very difficult due to this awful economic situation - I do not envy leaving that process behind), but rather, the permanent job hunt. Due to my time working (and I use this term loosely) with recruiters, I have quickly learned the values of using the Internet to have at job hunting by myself.

The problem with working with recruiters is that you're always using a middleman (or woman, depending on the situation) who may or may not be reliable depending on how stressed the recruiter happens to be, how many potential resumes he or she is juggling, and whether or not your resume makes any sort of impact. In all likelihood, it doesn't. Unless your resume elicits gasps of shock and awe and shines brightly to anyone in the vicinity, you're effectively competing with other people in a way where you have no control - you can't simply conduct it as you would an interview.

I find that it's best to use technology and resume areas like Monster as something of a placeholder. The Internet makes it easy to find people who can point you in the right directions - networking sites, especially LinkedIn, are my favorite place to go. Why place a job in the hands of a recruiter when you can take charge of your own future?

The Strength of Culture and Collaboration

In something of a retread of my last post, online collaboration seems similar in a way to virtual teams. Collaboration online can produce results swiftly and efficiently, and interestingly, in our reading we found that corporate culture was found to be the driving force behind efficiency in collaboration rather than technology. Why could this be?

More freedom and a sense of community rather than simply deploying the latest technology seem to be key triggers. What strikes a memorable chord with me is the "come and go as you please" idea mentioned in one of the articles. Simply put, I like having freedom to do pursue my own goals at my own pace, albeit with a reasonable time. I like having my resources and being told to accomplish something without having to make constant reports or updates, as long as the job gets done well. I have found that this lets me work in a relatively laid back, stress-free situation.

This is the benefit online communication and collaboration. People are often at home and they often have their own resources at their disposal online without making constant trips to the office. If this is the future, I am proud to be a part of it - in my current work now as an American University ambassador, I am in charge of online chats. Ambassadors can chat from home, work, or wherever they happen to be as we help prospective students, and everyone loves it.

The virtual team

I recently saw "Up in the Air", the film billed as the perfect dark comedy for a recession. A subplot of the film deals with the proposed usage of a virtual system where human resources officers, via webcam, will inform employees that they are being laid off. The underlying theme throughout the film is that E-communications lose a real element of the workforce; however, the film also glosses over what is gained with virtual teams.

While you do lose a certain element of real life contact when using virtual teams in an office place, with webcams and telecommunications in place of direct contact, a lot of things are gained. As "Up in the Air" readily admits, virtual teams are less expensive, more time-efficient, and generally more relaxing in a lot of situations. I can't count how many times I've been able to manage more work much more effectively without three people talking in the same room - something about having your own space makes the process much smoother.

Virtual communications and teams may never quite replace real life interaction, but they give us something as well. Beyond convenience and cost-efficiency, they give us a sense of easiness about our work and the way we do it - not to mention, from home we can grab a cup of coffee or maybe put a movie on silently in the background.

My second round with Second Life

My first encounter with Second Life was really considering it something of a novelty. I've been involved in virtual worlds since I was three - video game worlds, to be precise. So after traversing medieval landscapes, post-apocalyptic Earth, and the deep depths of space, my initial reaction when I logged into Second Life for the first time two years ago was "Huh, neat." I made great use of the flying mechanic and I had the most fun with it. I visited some public areas, namely digital seaside resorts and nightclubs. Then I shrugged, logged out, and uninstalled Second Life from my laptop, considering it an interesting diversion for programmers.

Second Life has obviously become so much more than that. In a way, Second Life represents - arguably better than the mega popular World of Warcraft - what digital worlds are capable of. They act as open hubs for corporate, political and social interests of all kinds. Not only that, people are developing careers out of making E-objects in Second Life - I read an interesting article where students are making thousands of dollars a month computing lines of code into objects that can then be sold to people in Second Life. There have even been stories of weddings conducted over this immense program.

The path to technological singularity? That's an open question. For now, Second Life stands as a striking example - albeit one of the most underrated - of what E-technology is capable of.

Linking Up with LinkedIn

This is reading that I knew something about; I've already had a LinkedIn profile for some time now, although I just recently got around to updating it and asking for several recommendations, which my friends and colleagues have generously agreed to provide. So what specifically works about LinkedIn?

The short answer is that in terms of networking for actual jobs and business opportunities, it's much easier to take seriously than Facebook, or especially MySpace. Look at any person's wall on Facebook: What do you see? General information, usually interests, some contact information, and then come the add-ons. My personal revulsion of Farmville aside, the average Facebook user's wall is chock full of polls, quizzes, trivias, graffiti walls, and maybe a few comments that would seem a little incriminating to employers.

What's on LinkedIn? Better privacy settings, an E-resume, recommendations, a chance to present oneself and display interests, not to mention get in touch with companies tech-savvy enough to be on LinkedIn. No whistles, bells, or irritating invitations to join Farmville.

As a second semester senior LinkedIn has and will continue to be invaluable to me in many ways, especially job searches and reaching out to people. If you don't have a LinkedIn account, I highly recommend making one for yourself.

The Value of Corporate Blogging

Our most recent reading, "On Corporate Blogging: Interview with Don Martelli of MS&L" struck a particular chord with me. While I have always understood the value of blogging as a social tool and a way where people can become connected, talk about important social issues, and get recognized for their writing prowess and their Internet skills, I had always had some trouble grasping the idea of corporate blogging. Surely, corporate bloggers would mostly deal with news updates and investor information which could be provided with press releases and E-mail alerts, right?

I'm glad I was ultimately very wrong. Don Martelli's interview is informative and well thought out, and this 15-year veteran obviously knows what he's doing - not surprising, given his work at a successful firm such as MS&L. It's true that information flow is 24/7, and consumer expectations hinge on a particular brand. A blog speaks to people in a way that a press release cannot - even if the blog is being run by a select group of individuals from a company's communications department, blogging provides for freedom and flexibility that more traditional media sources do not. Corporate blogging is still forming its own identity, but it has vast potential for brand power that we have not seen in previous iterations of corporate websites.

Is privacy a lie?

Like everyone else in our Social Networking and Business class, when we got our first glimpse of Facebook Mirror and learned that our privacy settings weren't nearly as protective as we might have thought, I quickly signed onto Facebook and raised security settings to near-maximum level. Our guest speaker's lecture was most illuminating. Despite setting virtually everything to "Friends Only" and ensuring that people could only see the bare bones aspects of my profile via Facebook Mirror, I couldn't quite get rid of that niggling little question: Would it be enough?

Back when Facebook started, when it was only available to students, privacy settings were simple: If you didn't allow everyone to see your profile, they simply couldn't. Facebook has truly grown into a mainstream Internet application in that privacy settings are not always what they appear to be, and there are often loopholes around privacy settings. What's more, there has been frequent difficulty in the past for people who have simply wanted to delete their profiles rather than simply disable them and leave all of their information on Facebook.

A recent episode of Law and Order dealt with the Internet, and Elliot Stabler, played by Christopher Meloni, suggests that posting pictures or any data on the Internet is effectively making it immortal. It is almost impossible to purge it from the Internet entirely unless you have total control over it, or it is relatively obscure. We've made ourselves immortal on Facebook, in a way - just look at how many people pay respects to the Facebook profiles of the recently deceased. However, we may also have to live with not having as much control of our privacy regarding our immortality as we thought.

The Internet: Making Us Stupid Since Our First Login

Elitism is, at its most basic level, a sense of superiority or confidence over others. It would be appropriate to define intellectual elites as those who have undergone significant academic training and rigorous studies, writing theses that an undergraduate Literature major such as myself would squirm at. Bravo for these people - discoveries and academic pursuits help make the world go round.

The problem is when academic elite transitions into academic elitism. As a very Web-oriented college student, I was particularly offended by needlessly inflammatory statements by intellectuals such as Doris Lessing, who boldly claim that the Internet is fragmenting our culture and making facts less certain. Let's make a brief analysis of Lessing's offending paragraph:

"We live in a fragmenting culture" Computers cause us to lack culture? Or does culture directly corroborate with facts? Lessing's primary concern seems to be the idea of alternative theories to facts; unfortunately, Lessing fails to acknowledge that alternative theories have been around since the dawn of history. Galileo's work was considered an alternative theory to the Catholic Church's dominant stance that the sun revolved around the Earth. All the Internet has done is make it easier for alternative theories and facts to be found. Aside from attracting more followers, it does not necessarily validate their merit.

So it's likely that people who have had years of education have "not read anything"? I wasn't aware that words on a computer screen were somehow inferior to the words in a book. If you want to go down that road, is a digital copy of Shakespeare somehow inferior to the Barnes and Noble classics edition? The lines Lessing draws are indistinguishable, which is especially ironic considering the articles we read for class were published on the Internet. I read texts for three of my other courses on the Internet, as well. Does Lessing mean to suggest that college professors around the country are not using the correct "format" for teaching?

Crowdsourcing

The crowdsourcing videos were interesting for me, because I have a roommate, Ethan, who's wholly devoted to print journalism. He works for The Eagle and spends long hours twice per week putting out issues of the paper. He readily admits that print journalism is a - it's perhaps too strong to say dying - weakening breed. I worked a stint in journalism but an old high school teacher of mine told me he was relieved I am no long interested in being a journalist, saying that aside from some "elite" newscasters journalism will be independently based.

This is why Ethan is not concerned about the future - if anything, crowdsourcing and the rise of the Internet is making it easier for people to take power into their own hands. The very blogging we do has shown to have tremendous sway provided we play our cards right. The future of journalism is uncertain with the rise of rapid communications and technology, but empowering individuals essentially levels the playing field. Time Magazine selected "You" as its Person of the Year for the sake individual entrepreneurship - they seem to have a good idea of where we can go from here.

AU Ambassador Online Chats

I thought it would be a good idea to start this post with something technology related, especially given the title of my blog. I'm an American University ambassador; we're basically student spokespeople for the university. We're the ones in red polos giving tours, directions for prospective student preview days, and periodically informative interviews in Katzen Arts Center.

As a member of the leader board, my primary responsibility is managing American University online chats for prospective students and their parents. How these work is admissions officers at AU set up chat rooms and those interested can visit and ask questions. It's a great way for students to get to know more about the campus if they can't visit in person, and a wonderful way for students to connect with people majoring in something they are interested in.

Having been in charge of this component for three years now, I've been extremely excited to watch participation by ambassadors and prospective students grow. We have averaged 300 visitors per chat (a significant increase) and I've heard excellent feedback all around. I've even introduced a guest chatter program where student leaders from campus visit the chat room to represent their organizations: We've had visitors from the SG, KPU, Student Activities, and so on. Are you such a leader at AU? Send me an E-mail!

Greetings from American University!

If you're not in Social Networking and Business, then you've stumbled upon Michael's class blog for Professor Melander's class at American University. I will be making weekly updates based on (appropriately enough) social networking, business, and anything else that comes to mind. On my honor, all posts in this blog are my own.