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
Sunday, September 30, 2007
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…
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
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?
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.
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
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