Saturday, December 15, 2007

Last Blog!

This is our last blog post! I have to say, I am sad but at the same time relived. I loved reading and learning about all these social networking sites and technologies that before I was completely unaware of. Before this class I thought of myself as a fairly technological person, I dominated the use of computers, digital cameras, google, office and facebook.
When I got to hear and learn about all these online technologies I realized I was wrong. There is a whole online world that I have been missing and as it turns out it can be very helpful not only in my personal life but also my professional one.
Only by reading and doing my blogs I have not only expanded my knowledge on tools that are going to be very helpful for the rest of my life but I have also changed my mind about certain things. Before coming to this class I was against using online tools unless they were necessary, it is only now I realize that you can ignore them but the more you use them the more your life and tasks will become easier.
I still believe on face to face interaction, I believe that it gives people a certain satisfaction that cannot be achieved online. It scares me to think how lonely our world can become when we depend solely on computers, but if I think about it that’s where our world is headed and if we don’t move with it, we’ll be stuck in a world that very few people stayed in. We have to use the Internet and make the best out of it. There are many good things one can do with it and we should take advantage of it.
I am sad because I won’t get to learn all these interesting things anymore. I don’t have access to them, I don’t know how to look for them. I have learned about blogging prior to the class but I never imagined myself as a blogger. Now, I have a accomplished something new, I became part of the blogosphere and it makes me happy that it is one more thing I’ve done.
However, I am relieved because writing has never been my strength. Every Sunday I had to struggle on how to write and try to make it sound interesting. Writing a formal paper is hard enough, writing something less formal is even harder. But, I made it through I survived and I am glad. I am happy I don’t have to struggle any more but also happy because I had to work on something that wasn’t my strength and even if I don’t master it now I still improved.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

facts vs. opinions

The article said it right! Web 2.0 is dangerous and deceiving. Anyone can go online and post their opinion, ideas and theories. Nobody is there to tell them what is right and what is wrong. The reader then comes and believes whatever has been said. He or she will use that information assuming it is right but ignoring that the information might be wrong and that the person who wrote it is probably not the most knowledgeable on the subject. There are some people that know that the information posted online is not the most accurate and that everyone can post whatever he or she wants.
However, the majority of the people, especially outside the United States, is not aware of this fact and will believe that anything or most of the things they find online is accurate and believable. They will use this information as legitimate and the wrong information will be spread quickly.
I especially believe that power of knowledge is no longer respected and I find it unfair. I believe that a teenager having the ability to change or challenge information made available by an experienced professor or scientist is wrong. Experts write facts, others tell opinions. There is no way the majority of the people can tell the difference. Every person who posts online and is not an expert and has no facts should have a disclaimer. This way people know what they are getting into, if they decide to use that information it is at their own expense, but at least with a warning.
On the other hand, having the freedom to share information is also beneficial. Before Web 2.0 people were restricted to the information made available by experts. The information released could sometimes be limited or controlled by their school, office or institution and they told only what they wanted their public to know; things were sometimes kept secret. Now everyone is free to write about what they want with no limitations.
Therefore, I believe that when a person is looking for information he or she should look for the facts written by an expert first, and then look for supporting or opposing views written by common people like us. We should not rely on bloggers or user generated content for facts but we should to find opinions about the subject. And lastly, before we believe what we read online we should check who wrote what we read and what type of credibility the person has.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

What to Buy

The likelihood of buying a product increases when I find a review that comes along with it. I learn of a product from what I see online and on TV, their advertisements and the information in their website, but what really helps me make a decision on what is best for me are the reviews posted online.

Formal marketers will only tell us of the best features of the products, they will never tell us about their flaws. In fact, advertisements and information provided by the company will sometimes exaggerate of the product’s excellence to persuade us to buy the product. Most of the times I can’t trust this information. On the other hand, the reviews tell me the real strengths and weaknesses of the product and whether or not I’ll be able to live with them. I trust them because they are posted by people like me, consumers who have nothing to win or lose by promoting or discouraging the use of the product. Further, I trust these sources because I have a variety to choose from. There are many reviews about the same product; so, if I don’t trust one I read the next one.

Therefore I really believe what was said in the article, when they say businesses should facilitate the creation of the user generated content as it is not only free advertising and marketing research but also a way to increase trust and confidence when a consumer is about to buy a product.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Not everybody is like that....

When we watch the news we see that people in Iraq are terrorists, that Iran makes nuclear weapons and that there is genocide in Darfur. That sometimes misleads us to think that everyone in that region is mean, supports their government or are doing the wrong thing. That leads us to create a stereotype.

Not everyone in that certain country is like that. There are many people who oppose what is going on, but the media doesn’t tell us that. As I read in the article Online Activism: Media Stereotypes And The Rise Of Smart Mobs, media wants to sell, and people like stereotype, terror and death. Therefore, generally they'll tell us the bad things, but never the good or the boring ones. They'll always tell us about the terrorists but not of the people in that country who oppose it.
Blogging gives individuals the opportunity to show the world who they really are and what they really think. They tell us that even if there are bad people and bad decisions in their region, they are not part of it. In addition, it allows us to voice our opinion and help change a situation. It lets the world know that someone is opposing what is going on and it puts pressure on governments to try and make a change.

Before, it was hard to voice these opinions. It was hard to let people know what you felt and who you agreed with. The internet and blogging has really eased the process up. However, I do believe that it is not total freedom.

There are countries where people go to jail and suffer hard consequences when voicing their opposing opinions. Countries like Iran and Cuba have very limited freedom of speech and when they say what they feel, they end up in jail to set up an example to prevent other people from doing it.

Overall the internet provides more freedom than any other media to show inidivual perspectives and opposing views. But this only happens in countries where there is freedom of speech. We should really work so that this works all over the world and not only where people are allowed to talk, because in the end, every one has something to say and they should be allowed to do it.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Be Careful with What You Ignore!

Online recruiting is something that may come in handy nowadays. Employers save time and effort and the process of hiring has become somewhat easier and faster. In addition, it is now faster to find people from other parts of the country, so it is a more diverse and talented workforce.

However, I believe that it also has its consequences. First of all, this is something mainly practiced in the United States; many people in other countries don’t even know of the existence of these sites. Therefore, it puts these candidates in disadvantage and it may cause recruiters to ignore talented people who could greatly contribute to the company. Not only for their talent, but for their knowledge of foreign cultures and practices. In addition, it may also cause recruiters to overlook qualities of a candidate that can only be seen personally and not through the internet.

I also believe that one of the greatest disadvantages is what Shapiro said in one of the articles, If you don’t have something that your competitors don’t have, then everyone will be looking at the same thing. In addition, like it was said in another of the articles, it also becomes a problem when you have a thousand applications to look at. It probably becomes overwhelming and recruiters will end up forgetting about the talented candidates.

Therefore, I do believe that this has its benefits but its disadvantages are greater for the time being and it may end up hurting the company for small things that can be forgotten or ignored in online recruiting.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Friends & Business

Earlier in the class I said Social Networking is fake, and sometimes it can be. But then today I read an article where the author said that when it comes to business you can also make it a monetized relationship in addition to friendship. I guess then, relationships become less fake, as long as you keep friendship in mind. Nowadays, I find myself easily relating to these topics.

When I started looking for jobs, the first thing people told me to do is think about my friends that were already working because they would be able to give me a hand. And so I did, I looked up all my friends that have a job, contacted them and gave them my resume. As it turns out, I now have people reviewing my resume in different cities and it has eased my application process a lot.

In the same manner, my mom just started a new magazine back home. She’s both the writer and editor. I was talking to her last night and she was telling me how being friends with very different people has helped her perform her job faster and easier. She interviews doctors, politicians and sport players very easily because she knows them outside of work in a social way and so they answer her questions and collaborate with her as friends.

Therefore, I realized that SN is not fake. The people I talked to are my friends. I go out with them, have lunch and talk to them, but they were also able to give me a hand in the business world. I guess that it works like that for many other people in the business world. I've been doing social networking almost all of my life, with out even realizing. Like I said before, where I come from it is a given, not something we study and pay particular attention to.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Online and lonley

It is hard for me to picture this virtual world with which companies are now involved. In Ecuador, and other parts of the world, we are not yet so technologically advanced. Most of the things are still done face to face. We have a meeting room, we still take a plane when we need meet a client or a partner, and definitely our teams meet in person and not in the virtual world.

Although it’s hard for me to imagine it, I believe that this is great for businesses. It saves time, money, space and countless other things. In addition, things are more effective and fast, the time previously spent in a plane is now spent online, discussing or creating ideas. So in that sense I believe that these new technologies have really come in handy, specially at this point in time where everything is so globalized.


However, it also scares me. I can’t really judge because I haven’t yet seen it work but I personally believe that it is better to meet face to face. While it really helps businesses, I think this harms societies. Now a days, there is no need to meet face to face with anybody. I think that people need that interaction, not only because it helps them know the person better and get to know what their strengths are, but also because there is a certain satisfaction from sharing real time with people. It scares me to think that in a near future we won’t have the need to leave our desks. Everything will be done online, and times in the office are going to become sad and lonely.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Drawing a Line between Personal and Professional Lives

There is too much information available out there, it is overwhelming! Some of that information is private. We upload it to share it with friends and family, to remember good and fun times. However, it seems that privacy is no longer there. Everyone has access to information that should not concern them.

I find it upsetting to see that people are granted or denied jobs based on their pictures and profiles in facebook or myspace. I think that a line should be drawn between professional and personal lives. As long as a person is able to behave professionally in their jobs, what they do in their spare time or the past should not concern employers.

It is unbelievable that the past can haunt you for so long. A position should not be denied to a person because of their personal lives. A beer or a frat party should not determine whether I am capable of performing a job or not. Basing a decision on a profile could lead the employer to overlook more important details that affect the performance in the job more directly. It could lead to a company losing an extremely valuable person because of their past or private lives.

Therefore, I believe that it should be illegal to look up your personal information online. However, I find that more difficult to control, so we should at least clean up our profiles and even if there are bad things posted online, we should make sure that there are more positive things to counter balance it.

I believe that these new emerging companies who manage profiles are going to be very profitable in the future. We don’t have the time to find our negative information and I believe that we aren’t even sure of how to begin looking for it.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Making the Best out of Technology!

Technology does just about everything nowadays. It’s freaky to think that people can know where I am not because they call me but because my cell phone is tracked down. It seems like little of our privacy is left. Our information has become public. Everybody can know who we are, what we do and where we are standing at that second. All these things can be overwhelming; I personally don’t think I could handle people knowing where I am at or what I am doing. However, I find other aspects of technology to be interesting and extremely useful.

Being able to sign up for a terrorist alert could save the life of millions. Further, allowing citizens to report on current issues with their own perspectives is a great step forward in journalism. News agencies have lost their credibility in the past couple of years. In addition, most of them are limited on what they report and most of the time they don’t tell the whole truth and entire story. Enabling citizens to report whatever they see how they see it is a great advantage. People can now see more of the truth than they do in regular news.

Therefore, technology can be overwhelming and misused sometimes. However, it can be used for good causes that will help shape the world differently and the way we see it. So I believe that instead of putting our efforts to be able to find each other through cell phone tracking we should put it in things that allow us to grow and change for the better.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

The Preview

Having the opportunity to create a second life for yourself is a great incentive. It allows the player to shape a life that could become his in the future. It provides with ideas on how to improve your life and how to do the things you never get to do in real life. For a college student, for example, it’s a good way to get started in the real life. Not only because it gives them networking opportunities with experienced employees but also because it shows them how life will be. It helps you manage your finance and your time. In second life you get to have money to invest in different ways. You have the option of buying clothes or buying stock. It is a good way to learn how to manage your money, without having to go broke if you do the wrong move.

However, I believe that having a “second life” might also be a problem. Nowadays, people don’t have time for a first life. They are consumed by technology, work and in general a very fast paced life where they don’t have time to live their lives. Adding Second Life to their lives could become another reason to become immersed in the virtual world and forget about their real one.

Therefore, having a second life should be an incentive to improve your real life, not a tool to forget about it. Second life could be a preview of your first

Monday, September 24, 2007

Breaking the Barriers...

When thinking about a company and what their main goal is, I think about profit. As long as they are making profit I feel like they do not care about costumer satisfaction, or product quality. When trying to make profits increase they won’t let anybody get in their way. That is how I perceive companies. However, when reading Naked Conversations I realized that a company can have a human face, it is just hard to show it. Blogging is a good way to start.

It is a time when employees are allowed to show a personal and individual part of themselves that they may not be able to show when they are performing their jobs. It allows the costumers to feel a step closer to the company by seeing that there might be ways in which they relate to the employees.

In addition, blogging is a way for a company to understand what a costumer wants and needs and try to incorporate it in their products and costumer service. It also enables a costumer to express their feelings toward the company and know that they are being heard in the other end. It is something personal between the company and a costumer. As opposed to posting something on a website and never know who and when somebody is going to read it.

Therefore, blogging is an opportunity for a company to show its human face and also let their costumers feel closer to the company by feeling that what they are saying is being heard! Bloggins breaks the barrier between a company and its costumers…

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

check it out!

Alexandra's post is interesting! Go check it out...

Monday, September 17, 2007

Am I being used?

Social Networking is superficial. Relationships are built not for who people really are but what they are and represent. The person does not focus on the other person’s personality but rather on what can be obtained from them. These relationships are based not on friendship but on interest. Whenever the person finds that the other is no longer valuable to them, then he or she can be dismissed and when that happens, a whole network can be torn apart. Therefore, I believe there is no real way to measure or evaluate a contact. As I was reading in “Social Network Targets the Enterprise”, I thought to myself how impossible it is to rate them, these relationships are weak and most of the time fake. It can also happen that while one person thinks they are really good friends with the other, the other might be sticking around for her value and information but doesn’t really consider them a friend.

Hence, how can you rate a relationship or a contact that in the first place is not real? Something that seems to be strong can end up being so fragile that it ends up breaking in a second and things fall apart. Where can the line be drawn to know when you are being a friend and when you are being used?

Monday, September 10, 2007

Different Concepts of Networking

Social relationships, friendship and networking seem to be very different in the United States than it is in any of the countries I am familiar with. South and Central American countries are very small and its social and economic classes are very divided. Therefore, societies tend to be small and everybody usually knows each other. Sometimes not directly, but everyone is the friend of the friend, the cousin of the wife, they went to high school with the sister or somehow they end up being distant relatives. The societies I know of only have one or two degrees of separation, it only takes one or two people to reach the person you are looking for.

When coming to college, I found out that networking not only worked like this for my country, but also for several other Latin American countries. I quickly became friends with other people from Latin America, who knew some of my friends and I had heard of some of the names of their friends. Knowing everybody wasn’t only something that happened in my country but in the neighboring ones. I could quickly relate to somebody in Panama or Nicaragua because my friends were usually friends with their friends, and so on.

Networking was something I never thought about. I used to take it for granted. I have always been able to reach people easily and I never thought of how beneficial this could turn out to be. Now that I read about it I find out how complex and useful networking is. Now I understand why for us things seem to be simpler than they are in the States. You can easily find the friend of the friend to fix things, to help you find a job, to give you a contact’s number or to provide you with essential information that will make a difference in your job or business.

Networking in bigger countries and societies is a very different concept than what it is for me and I guess most of the people in my society. I learn now that it is studied and extremely valued. Where I come from, you are born into a network whether you like it or not so you don't really pay attention to it. It is something helpful but undervalued. I guess that if we took our time to realize what we have in front of us, our countries would be far more efficient than what they are now.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

my first post

This is a post for Itec 333-001
On my honor, all posts in this blog are mine