The Bloggers Blogs

Much to my surprise I have now totted up a total, of now 14 posts, for my blog… having originally not seen the point in it in the first place (sorry mike) I seem to have changed my perspective of what this is all about, proving mikes original point quite correct. I’m now rather fond of my blog and have liked my self serviced therapy and thought process achieved by writing down my ideas and thoughts mostly to do with IMS… (I didn’t want to get all emotional or bitchy as that could have been a long one) and thinking maybe some highly successful marketing manager is looking- erm maybe not!

Having recently listened to Paul Charles (Virgins Corporate Communications Director) talk about the future of communications mainly PR based functions, blogging is coming into its own, and more and more recognition of the function it bring seen in corporate and personal contexts. After talking to Paul later on he asked if I kept a blog, and said that he regularly reads ones concerning himself and the company, this got me thinking about the effect blogs could be having, for example I have been preparing for a assessment day for the Microsoft graduate scheme, and while gaining and incite into the business I have come across the personal blogs of certain staff and directors at the company- which have been really insightful.

While at my interview yesterday at the Microsoft campus they asked about which university courses I was most enjoying, and I had to say IMS- not just to try and pretend I knew things about technology (maybe a little bit?), it seems odd that this isn’t a core subject, however I have herd rumours it is soon going to be for the next years to come. It seems to be the most relevant and up-to-date examples of the world we are actually going into, blogging, consumer power, diffusion of innovations…. Etc
In all I can see myself continuing with the blog, when we think of doing work that isn’t for marking nor grade worthy I (like many others) can get quite put off, but I can see blogs working, they help to network promote and express ideas, and can be quite rewarding, when people start interacting with other blogs and your own.

Traffic

So I was looking at this site my housemate has been showing me, the alexa application to compare internet traffic, I found it interesting to see the post xmas dip in site hits for ebay and Amazon.
And success it would seem blogger is one of the most highly populated web traffic sites!? More than google and myspace!? Hummm

Nostalgia

The idea of nostalgia has been interesting me recently how we look back on the past which such happiness and try and recreate what always seems like a better time in our lives, even though we didn’t seem to realise it back then.

Although I’m talking from the perspective of a 1985 born 21 year old, I have still started to get feelings of nostalgia when discussing things like TV and video games with friends. I also feel overwhelmed with nostalgia spurred on by websites that help us to look back on the ways things were, and I mainly feel inspired by looking at you tube videos of music that reminds me of what my parents listened to when I was younger.
Never did I think the things I constantly complained about having to do, go to, or listen to when I was younger (younger been around 10 years ago) would now be something I constantly want to keep exploring now, when I’m at a time and opportunity to do what I want.

It’s hard to understand why we feel pleasure from looking at a time when we think we were happier, and even though I mentioned I’m a 21 year old, I think I can now relate to nostalgic feeling because that time always seems to stem from childhood: this is a time when we had no responsibilities and still innocently following the instructions of elders and people who we respect.
Interactive media and applications are a strange equilibrium, even though they are the very innovative technologies constantly evolving our lives and technology that is used today, they are the very applications bringing us that one step closer to looking into the past.

It seems like a very odd concept that I would feel less in contact with my nostalgic childhood without the help from yotube, ebay, itunes, wikipedia expedia etc, which all relaying stories showing me pictures and giving me more detail about places I’ve been to, things I’ve listened to and stuff that I have brought.
My Aunty recently emailed me to tell me about a strong family connection of my grandfather travling to england in the war, which is all detailed and descriptive with thanks to wikipedia…. !!

Digital Socialising

I’ve was thinking about socialising, and what it means in our lives today and what it used to mean. I remember all studying theory about groups and communities forming, and the need to feel like we belong to something and to have shared goals and the forming and norming stages of dynamic relationships.
However something that has been making me wonder recently is the value of the experiences we share today and the evidence we produce to remind ourselves of who we are friends with and develop our social status.

With the wonders of digital cameras and website like dontstayin.com and facebook the experience of going out had become almost synonymous with the after evidence of the night, and the status symbol of having a certain amount of friends belonging to various “groups” and networks.
I starting thinking about all this when I realised that the camera my dad brought me for xmas 2005 has been used a lot for nights out with my friends, yet little evidence of pictures taken during the day.
Whereas before you may have a couple of films developed from a two week holiday abroad, which would equal 60 photo’s (if you’re lucky).
Nowadays over 100+ can be the normal output of a night on the tiles, and probably one of the only things to remind us where we were, and who we were with. (ok so this really may be an extreme example- but it does happen)

I know its not just me and people I know who do it, and my the wonders of social media we can share, collaborate, tag and comment on various picture we choose to broadcast to whoever wants to see it.
It seems like everyone wants there fair share of fame these days and you now even have peoples “model” tendencies coming out with self portrait pictures and pouting to themselves and a camera, in the hopes that some model scout will discover them (this isent me by the way).

Its just made me want to compare my social setting with that of my parents, the pictures I have of them from when they were my age are few in numbers yet extremely valuable, however I have well over 4,000 pictures files on my pc yet I wonder which ones will really be the make up of my memories in the future?
Im sure im just being overly philosophical, and I do think digital camera are good, its just the motives different generations have for the excessive memory cards needed to fuel constant picture taking that could easily translate a lot about our social settings.

Family and Religion

Ok so I come form a vary large Irish catholic family, and by the wonders of myspace have managed to find around 5 of my first cousins on there as well, I have even found my lovely older brother on facebook, which I was pirtty surprised about as he’s never been the “social media” kind of guy.

Are we now going to have “families” online, the ability that my brother could tag me as “his sister” and other members of your family can be named appropriately shows the possibilities for a “virtual family”.

The worry is how we represent ourselves online, for example I double checked that there weren’t any incriminating pictures of myself that my cousins and brother could quiz me about next time I see them, showing that I’m presenting a certain side of myself online that may not be in keeping with other peoples perceptions.

This all got me thinking about family, I read my cousins blog, also entitled ‘family’, and it spoke of how proud she is to come from such a large yet close family, who have of course had there ups and downs. Since a young age I've been very aware I come from an interesting extended family and enjoyed the semi-infamous status we adorned around the midlands where most of them still live today. My Nan & Grandad followed the strict Catholic regime and my nan heroically carried, produced, popped out and nurtured 11 children (My late father being one of them) and remarkably cared for a further 3!

Now that the second generation of “kids” are coming thorough, me and my 24, (first cousins on my dads side) are the larger representation of “the family”. With most of us now being in our 20’s or 30’s, I find it strange seeing them on myspace, and have noticed more that a lot of them put “catholic” in the religion status.

However I find with most people my age the stsu more common is “atheist” . Don’t get me wrong I have never been one to argue about someone’s beliefs, but it also strikes me as the thing people do these days, almost the norm.

I find people who are “atheist” a lot more vocal than the religious subset of our age range, maybe that’s just because of the people I know?

I would also disagree with anyone shouting there mouth off about certain religions and cults and I don’t adhere to all the bible teachings and spend every Sunday morning at church, However I feel proud that my parents decided to bring me up in that way, and I believe my moral judgments and basic understandings were all developed with the help of religion.

I think this has just shown me that the internet makes it easy for us to express more than just our sexual orientation and age, and the deep and meaningfull statuses are the ones so often overlooked, and without sounding too postmodern, its just more evidence that there is a break down of dominant ideologies our culture and society once relied upon.

Tecky Timewasting

Ive been looking at how other people interact with Blogs, and came across an intresting one called masters of media, it had a link to this picture, which I have been looking at for about 10 mins so wanted to add it here as well.

Sign-if-i-can’t

While contemplating the assignment for our IMS course, I’ve started thinking about how organisations use technology to aid there business. I feel very grateful that I had my placement year at such a forward thinking company and managed to get so much from it.
Infact my very job at Cisco was to translate the business benefits of there end users and then profile them in PR case studies and events.

Technological advancements fascinate me, and more to the point there impact on today’s society, while filling in a gradate application form one of the questions I answered why WHY technology interests me. I think it has to be its effect on organisations, such as the public sector, and how it facilitates opportunities for people.

I remember seeing how Cisco used tandgerd video units along with Cisco call manager platform to create a video contact centre for deaf people. Before this innovation started running in local government services There was a wait of up to two weeks for an interpreter, charging £90-150 per session for deaf customers to independently to deal with trivial issues such as council tax.

The UK has 70,000 deaf sign language users and less than 200 qualified interpreters and yet Cisco has managed to move forward with what they call “inclusion through innovation”. This has also made sure county councils are starting to Meet obligations under the disability discrimination act, and allows high quality service of sign language interpreters through the video call centre, 7 times faster than text.

Therefore what it boils down to is, it’s easy to rant about the threats and miss trust placed into new technology, yet it’s a force of change we have to embrace and if you look the benefits are everywhere.

Virtual Insanity

With everything going on in the news at the moment have started to think about online “Communities” social communities like facebook and myspace, start to make people wonder what a small world it is, and send them off in the pursuit of old school friends bands, and the ability to stalk the less known.
However looking at the wider picture these sites are arguably, made up of middle class (owning a PC and internet connection being standard) white western society.

This is as far as I have delved into the online “world” and its fragmented “community” sites, but I am intrigued by upcoming phenomenon’s such as second life and habbo hotel, becoming a more and more realistic which endless possibilities to make an income based bizarrely on intangible goods!?
I was reading about Moopf Murray who spent 40 hours developing his $60 Skoopf roller skates and has sold 60,000 pairs in two years. The designer’s other bestselling products include ice skates and vending machines. The twist being? Well he doesn’t exist.
This is a online avatar representing the part-time persona of a Derbyshire software developer in Second Life.

The idea these days that people want to escape is only enabling the success of such online mediums, however this haven’t escaped the corporate money making of today’s real world and people are chasing in on the virtual world.
Ailin Graef became the first dollar millionaire in Second Life after two years of buying and selling virtual real estate through her avatar, Anshe Chung.
It seems now as if little value is placed on the traditional values that a community arose from, I live in a small county village, where community life still exits somewhat from older generations. There are still weekly community meeting in the community hall etc, however arguably this we are starting to know our neighbors less and less, as we become better acquainted with an online forum or second life?
And when the going gets tough and we would rather not deal with the realities of today’s culture and society, are we placing more trust into an online world, and a non existent digital avatar?

Theifs!!

Having not had the internet now for well over a week, I am overly excited to have picked up a wireless signal from a neighbors house, so now the debate of do we steal online… and do we think its ok? Has started to make me wonder!
As mike suggested, we would never go into a shop and think its ok to steal something, so why do we think its ok to do it online?
The journal article by mike and Janice describes a community of people who file share, presenting themselves as “consumer champions” reacting to unfair industry practices.

Detweiller’s quote in our lecture about this sleazy backstreet being brought into everyone’s home is a worrying example of the power of something that could so easily destroy moral values and security in our society.
Having recently worked at my local probation service, I came across court papers showing the data collection needed, and security monitored forces to “crack down” on online pedophilia, and indecent pornography, as well as the wealth of data needed to charge such criminals, proving it was them, and not some slip up or virus on there hard drive!

This picks up on my last point about how much should we ‘trust’ the internet, and our newly formed communication methords.
My mum, who is far from technologically enabled, with little more than an analogue phone, and a book to hand, would never even consider using the internet.

She recently ranted to me about the use of texting and emails and how “our generation” are little more than cowards unable to produce a good conversation with someone face to face, and are overly lazy with the use of what we have.
Reliance of these new media’s is now standard for teenagers who would not remember times without mobile phones, digital TV, and broadband.
But is this also breeding an unreliable and confused group of people, the idea of what’s right and wrong is clearly being confused and could this become even more of a problem in the future.

IMS is everywhere

So I am starting to think of the subjects I take at uni, and I can see more and more how applicable and up to date IMS is: everywhere I look new forms of media are being exploited, the queen now doing pod casts, and all this self publicity and promotion on “social” networking sites is thriving (anyone can build a website, or be a promoter these days!)
Businesses are seeing how ROI can be achieved through using online mediums, Cisco Systems for example work in a “paper free office” environment, with nearly every task, down to fixing paper lodged in a printer- Is dealt with online.

When we explored how wikis are being used, we started by looking at Bournemouth University’s wiki, its hard to know whether prospective students would ever look at the wiki description of a uni they were debating, however these online tools seems to give and objective opinion of something… maybe even promoting free speech!?

However seeing such narrated and planned pod casts and publicity sites (webcamerron- the spoof pic above being in his library on his website- worryingly) is starting to make me wonder the value of what’s written on the internet, viral images and fake profiles all lead to a dissolution of what’s “real” so how much can companies and people actually invest in this medium, or should we be sticking to the traditional established communication methords….Telegram anyone?

Motivation- the keeping of time....

I came to Uni to write an assignment, but before I have even opened up a word document I have logged myself onto facebook and myspace (I have even set up a myspace page for my housemate to introduce her to the wonders of distraction it causes from uni work)

I’m not 100% clear what my motivation is for using myspace and facebook- generally its looking at messages from my housemates and people I see everyday, I rarely speak to my mates away travelling or at other Universities through this medium (which is probably what it was designed to be effective for!)

Simultaneously I am constantly checking my hotmail email; this is because I needed to get back in contact with my old workmates since leaving. At Cisco Systems (My placement company) I noticed that emails are a far more preferred communication method to get hold of anyone. Jokes and banter where constantly shared around what hermits everyone could become by working their, you literally didn’t need to leave you office, for the use of video phones and online “meeting places” and SKYPE conference calls- Cisco are even the ones supplying all this new technology to make sure people and ‘collaborate’ and ‘communicate’ wherever.

I have at this time looked on CEMP to see what’s being posted on the online forum and to look at other peoples views of there online activity. I haven’t posted anything but looked at a lot of the forums and threads, I don’t feel obliged to say anything back as I haven’t developed strong opinions to any topics as yet but I am sure from what mike has been saying I need to get more actively engaged with it.

I finally after all this start to do some assignment work, with both myspace hotmail, web msn and facebook all running in the background- I’m starting to wonder if I would be best working from a computer with no internet connection on it, but I can argue this by the need to for online journals- so at least that’s one good thing… all in the name of IMS?

Getting Involved

It has been identified that creating a compelling online experience for cyber customers is critical in gaining a competitive edge on the internet.
We have been looking at Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of Flow (1977) which describes it as a process of “optimal experience”.

One paper on 'Flow’ describes it as a feeling of alertness, effortless control, unselfconsciousness, and performing at your best. When an individual is in Flow a sense of time, and emotional problems, seem to disappear and a feeling of transcendence, or oneness with the activity, is present.
Using this definition it is easier to summarise the activities which result in a state of “flow” like reading a book, shopping, sex, sport… or - more relevant to IMS - surfing the internet or playing on a video game.

Unlike an activity such as watching TV, Flow needs to present some kind of challenge or goal: an activity that we desire or want to be involved with.

Motivation seems to be the big factor in the state of Flow. This implies that we actually need to be actively involved something for it to become a high skilled and challenged activity.
Walking around the Uni and trying to get people’s attention while they are on PCs shows Flow in process!
People ‘zone out’ all other factors and become highly involved with that particular activity. Arguably they may not want to be doing that particular work nor find it pleasurable. Nevertheless, there is a large motivational push to be engaging with the activity.

So it would seem that Flow is not always a pleasurable experience……

The more pleasurable examples of Flow seem to be when we are engaging in the activity for its own sake.
Talking to people on MSN is an activity which requires application knowledge (ability to use the softqare programme) and the challenge of conversation. Does this mean we enjoy this pleasurable feeling of Flow more then a highly motivated yet less voluntarily instigated version??

Ok Then...

Ok, so we have been asked to create our very own blogs to share with the world our life stories and interesting ramblings. I have noticed other people make them before, and always wondered what the point was?

They seem pretty egotistical. Does anyone really care what anyone else has to say? Or are we just speaking to an empty audience?
Then again, I seem to have proven myself completely wrong as I have bothered to look at other people’s.

So maybe we do care?
The stalker-ish nature of these things is always the bit that scares me, the ability to get aquainted with people we barely know or have never met… and then for their goings on to actually interest us all seems a bit bizzare.

I think there is a stigma attached to getting interactively involved with internet applications. No-one really wants to be an internet “Geek” as it implies they don’t have a “real” social life (as compared to a virtual one) and that their friends are derived from forums, myspace, and chat rooms etc.
As I’m sitting in the library now I have just overheard a conversation (I swear this is true):
Person A- What u doing?
Person B- I’m singing up to Facebook.
Person A- Oooh I’m on Facebook add me as a friend.
Person B- Ok, how do I do that?
Person A- I will show you… Also, Myspace is better. Get on that, too!

…And at closer inspection neither Person A nor Person B, looks like my picture above!

In recent years I think this stigma seems be disappearing. More people are accepting these applications and seeing the possible benefits of being involved. I justified setting up a Myspace account for the music: the way you can stream live tunes from the bands/ artists sites in real time seemed to be a good idea.

However, I come unstuck when I realise you don’t need to have your very own page set up to be able to do this. This only worries me more as it seems I’m obviously enjoying the things I thought were pointless. I like the fact that I can share photos with mates and add profile songs and backgrounds :S
I even know that the colon and the letter S are meant to be a worried face!!

Are we ALL becoming geeks… and are they now COOL?