The Social Media Element

     The new technologies are now being developed around the social media element. We now see more software being developed for smart phone mobile platforms than ever before, and with social media capabilities at the forefront.

This can only mean one thing, social media dominance! Yep! Facebook is about to take over the world and the technology industry! Relax. I was just kidding, but, I would not be surprised if it happened eventually.

But, seriously, businesses are finding the social media element very beneficial and integral to the success of online (and offline) business. Social media is where everyone is at lately. I know, because I’ve looked and I don’t see anyone hanging at the coffee shop anymore! But, I can find everyone online in a matter of seconds! It’s crazy!

Basically, that social element is all around us in our emails, text messaging, online chats, blogs, videoconferencing like Skype and WebEx, and business forums like TED Talks. These are the lifeblood of modern twenty-first century business now.


                               WebEx

  The race is on to make everything social media technologically user friendly for the average user, regardless of technological familiarity or expertise (or lack thereof) to humanly connect with one another, to businesses and every other aspect of our lives.

  I don’t know about you, but I love it when I work somewhere that provides me with a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and I am allowed to work from home, and yes, it IS the new reality… -just as soon as companies realize that laying people off does not save businesses a fraction of what they would save employing remote workers and giving up the corporate real estate they own (Doe, n.d.).

     I personally think it will happen within the next decade, but that’s my own wishful thinking because I’ve never really cared much for working in an office. But, that’s my own wishful thinking.

     Once you work with business technology social media tools, you won’t want to go back to the old ways of doing business. One of the most familiar technology business tools used today that connects us to the office are VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). It connects your Internet with your desk phone, into your computer. I loved this so much when it first came out. You still have a desk phone, but it no longer is a service with your local telephone provider (Doe, n.d.).

     Another technological social media advancement at the office is the chat or IM (instant messaging) systems like Microsoft Exchange or IBM Sametime, where you can speak with anyone no matter where they are in the world, or sitting right next to you, very stealthily. Sometimes this tool gets a pretty bad rap, though. It’s been known to aid and abet the gossiping offenders, but it sure makes the office nice and quiet. You always know there’s some juicy gossip going on when you hear rapid fire typing without anyone talking. I guess technology just made office gossip mongers more passive aggressive by inventing that tool (Doe, n.d.).

     But, more than anything else, the videoconferencing technology, such as Skype or WebEx has truly made the world a smaller place to connect socially and professionally. It is responsible for many remote employees to be able to work from home and still attend meetings with anyone in the world, and yes, it is part of the VoIP technology, too (Doe, n.d.).

     Social media and the new technology that enables it is awesome on so many levels, but there’s still the fact that we are beginning to avoid face-to-face communication because that same technology allows us to hide behind a technological facade, too.

                                                                 Social Avoidance TED Talk 

        Yes, I love working remotely and not have to go into a cliquey, hostile office environment, especially during layoffs when I feel like the last gazelle on the Savannah getting ready to be a lion’s feast. Avoidance, -or what? Hey! I’m not the only one who does that, where do you think I learned that from?


         But honestly, I have no problem self-isolating myself working remotely. But, the point being that too much human avoidance no matter how convenient social media technology is for both personally and professionally drives us out of true social and very real human relationships (Doe, n.d.).

       I have to admit, after a week or two of talking to no one but my cat and the mailman I’m about ready just to take a trip to the grocery store for some human connection. But, I’m not ready to go back to the office just quite yet!
 
Doe, G. (n.d.). Influence of Technology on Social Media. Retrieved November 6, 2016 from http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/influence-technology-social-media-15702.html

The Changing Communications Effect of Digital Social Media Technology

           Digital technology has really changed the way we communicate with each other and has also touched almost every facet of our lives from the way we interact and engage with others, to politics, business, entertainment, news, culture and the manner in which we purchase goods and services. Let’s face it we now live our entire lives online. But, nothing has changed us more than digital social media technology in the way that we communicate with each other.

            Nick Morgan is a regular Forbes online contributor and public speaker, who writes about how digital technology has changed communications. In his review of Nicco Mele’s new book “The End of Big” Morgan’s explores how the impact of digital technology on the communication industry by explaining how digital technology played in integral part in the changes of communication (Morgan, 2013).

  

                                                                           Nicco Mele

            Nicco Mele’s depiction of twenty-first century communication using digital technology and social media is a change in the global hierarchy of existing world-wide communication to point of possible eradication of those hierarchies entirely. Mele suggests that “By putting us all within one or two removes from one another, the digital era has radically flattened hierarchies of communication everywhere, and completely reshaped the old power relationship between the rulers and the masses.” (Morgan, 2013).

            Translation, the transition of communication power has shifted, providing the user (or audience) a voice with which to communicate anything publicly online. Mele suggests that this is the old David and Goliath story when it comes to the empowerment that digital and social media now provides to the formerly voiceless masses (Morgan, 2013).

            A disgruntled patron now has an outlet of empowerment to publicly rate an establishment for poor service, or dissatisfaction of a product or service, which refers to as “radical connectivity” (Morgan, 2013).

            He also suggests that due to social media that we are now experiencing the dumbing down of our communication system, and a loss of communicative sophistication with our language and information, in our communications style.  He also suggests that there is so much information to get through now that much is lost in the translation, or the profane lack of interest to slog through massive amounts of information (Morgan, 2013).

            Secondly, Mele states that anyone’s voice may be heard, which can be good and bad. Good because social and digital media provide a platform for those who would normally would not be heard, but bad due to the amount of people who now have a platform that are literally flooding the platform to be heard (Morgan, 2013).

            He concludes that “in a radically connected world, you’ve got to be persistent, and it helps to be smart.” Which he is right, because to set oneself apart to be recognized on digital social media takes either something sensational that sets the communication apart from the ordinary and the mundane, or intelligence so rare to set itself apart from the pack (Morgan, 2013).

            Just as an example, we see cats on social media all the time. I mean, I love cats, but not all these Internet pets do anything extraordinary to get them noticed and much of the reason why these stupid cats are social media is because of their pet parents that are under the impression that their little fluff balls are unique.

            But, last year a purple dyed kitten was saved from being a dog’s chew toy and it went viral. They raised money for this kitten to save its life and even paired him up with another abandoned kitten who was blind. As a result, they were adopted together and they lived happily ever after and are gorgeous cats now.

The information glut… too many boring Internet cats!

The intelligent information uniqueness… purple kitten Smurf and his blind fur friend Wanda are saved.

Because everyone loves a happy ending!   

                  Smurf & Wanda

Morgan, N. (2013, May 21). How Digital Technology Has Changed Communication. 
Retrieved November 6, 2016 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2013/05/21/how-digital-technology-has-changed-communication-first-of-three-posts/#1464e27b46cb/

“Hey! There!”...Welcome to my blog!

I’m just going to jump right in here and get directly to the point, as we all pretty much use technology and digital social media now. But, I thought it would be fun to have a nostalgic trip down memory lane, while I still have memories to share.

I can still remember the wall mounted black rotary telephone I used as a child, I remember when black and white television became color, and I remember a telephone booth on every corner for .10 cents to call home if I was going to be late. But nothing prepared me as I grew into young adulthood into the computer age.

            I was 29 years old when I first touched a computer. I was dating a really smart guy and he took it upon himself to introduce me to the digital era. Back then in the early 1990s, the Internet was a black screen with white or green lettering and not at all user friendly. It was called a “bulletinboard system” (BBS) and I watched in amazement as I virtually spoke with people online, I was in awe of this new device called PC and it made me feel really smart. 
                                             

                                                                     
           I spoke to this new device in what was called DOS and I thought this PC was so fascinating. But, that was before something called a GUI interface (graphical user interface) which came out a couple of years later. My new device knowledge enabled me to get hired for jobs using these new devices. I couldn't believe that after years of being an average student that I suddenly grew a brain and got really, really smart and my salary grew right along with that brain.

           But my new device kept growing and changing so rapidly that it was literally mind blowing. Just as I learned Microsoft 3.0, 3.1 came out, then another version, and another. I thought, just how many of these versions am I going to have to learn, anyway? Then, it hit me as I began to work in the technology industry in 1996, that this was an evolution, another major transition like the Industrial Revolution, that was never going to stop evolving and that we’re all just going to be driven to madness by a massively lengthy continuum of lifelong learning!

            Then, to complicate matters even more, PCs got smaller, cell phones got bigger and the Internet was responsible for the shotgun marriage of PC and cell phone, and they had a huge baby named Smartphone. At first smart phones had ridiculously cumbersome and limited software on them and it was incredibly frustrating to connect to the Internet using the device.  

            Then, as smart phone software evolved and became more user friendly, the Internet through us a curve and introduced the second huge baby in their family by the name of social media, and that baby grew up with a lot of friends by the names of Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Google, Yahoo! and a bunch of characters called websites!  

            Well, things got really crazy with social media and the Internet was deemed as an unregulated entity protected by the U.S. First Amendment. So, you know what happens when kids go unsupervised, right? Yep. Social Media grew up as renegades and smart aleck-y know-it-alls and surpassed many of us in technological and social media savvy.

            I think I first realized it when my friends started having kids who were playing with smart phones as toddlers, as I was struggling with the operation of the smart phones that made me feel so dumb!

            I just could not, and still cannot justify learning Twitter. I don’t know anyone that uses it, although I do enjoy receiving breaking news through it. I prefer Facebook, because all my old friends from the 1980s know how to use that, and it makes me feel less lonely. The more I use social media, the less I interact with humans. I’m not too sure if I mind, really, as I age I find myself growing pretty intolerant of most folks and prefer the company of my cat, Marley.

            I’m in my mid-fifties now and still learning new media technology especially every time something new comes out. I’m currently teaching myself Instagram, and I’m so happy I can post my images to my Facebook page to share with my old friends. I even inspire some of them to learn new media, too. But, it’s so time consuming to learn all the new social media communications sites all the time.

            What I have noticed is that this second generation, I call the grand kids, is a more user friendly bunch who make new rules for a more progressive standard in terms of social media communication.

            For example the grand kids don’t care much for typing, so they developed some shorthand language called texting. I really like texting, but with limited characters, I just can’t seem to finish my novel on my smart phone.  My smart phone and I have finally made peace and I love it. Because, it looks like the grand kids are heading towards more video based forms of communication now that YouTube has finally come of age and had its own baby named Snapchat!

            I finally see social media making life a lot easier for us older folks with the advent of video messaging. Got to love those progressive and innovative grand kids! Now if I can just get talk and text software to complete my texting novel… -I’m sure that’s next in development…