Instant Messaging at the Workplace

 

 

 

As one of the first generations to enter the real world with a good grasp of Web 2.0, I decided to write my final paper in my Intro to Digital Age class on Instant Messaging (IM) in the Workplace.

 

I graduated in 2004 and at my first employer, we were required to use IM at work. It was how the company was set-up so you could communicate with your supervisors and colleagues that way. It was certainly a plus for me. All my friends were in AOL’s Instant Messaging at the time so I was able to keep in touch with my college friends easier.

 

However, I do realize that not everyone has had the opportunity to experience IM at work or not everyone who has experienced it had a positive outcome. I plan on researching by conducting interviews with my generation and older generations with their experience (or lack thereof) with this new communication tool.

Employees can not only be reached through their office phones, their mobile phones, their e-mail addresses, they can now also be hunted through IM. Is this necessarily a good thing? Is the public getting spoiled with getting what they want as soon as they want it? Or is this merely one of the conveniences that the public can enjoy from the digital age?

With that said, I plan on analyzing the pros and cons of Instant Messaging at the workplace and to answer my thesis question: Is Instant Messaging a positive/convenient or a negative/distracting tool in the workplace?

I will talk about how IM was introduced in the workplace, how older generations are coping, and what the younger generations are demanding. It will also touch on the privacy and legal issues between companies, their employees, and the public. I am currently looking for people in various levels of the corporate world to interview. Please do let me know if you would like to participate or if you can recommend an expert in the topic. I would really appreciate any help in this topic. Some questions I might ask are: Is Instant Messaging a good business tool or is it a distraction from doing real work? Should it be promoted to non-Instant Messaging workplaces or should it be blocked by those that currently allow Instant Messaging? If it should be allowed, should there be company rules and restrictions in regards to time, usage, and language? Should conversations be monitored by the companies?

I will also be handing out two different surveys, one for managers and the other for employees. I’d like to get an input from both sides. Is your company currently open to using IM at work? Or are you working at a more conservative company? Would you like your company to use IM if it is currently banned? Why or why not? These are only some of the questions that I plan on tackling in the surveys and interviews.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing back from some of you.

Is Google Part of the Big Media

Years ago, when radio broadcasting was just starting out, Clear Channel, came in and swooped everyone out. They bought all the little radio people and decided to run localized radio shows halfway across the country. Years later, the same thing happened with cable TV. This time it was a company called Viacom. They decided to bundle the consumers’ TV channels together so if one wanted to get HBO, one would have to subscribe to ten other channels that one is not interested in. Clear Channel and Viacom are both part of the Big Media.

In our generation, the newest form of communication is the online world–the Internet. As everyone knows, Google is the most powerful search engine. It also has Gmail, Google Ad Words, Google Docs, etc. It seems to have everything.

Not only does it have everything, “Google knows where you live” according to John Battelle’s The Search. Type in one’s phone number and you’ll have access to their address and other sensitive information. What I want to know is.. is Google now part of the Big Media? They control what we see online. Are they regulated? No. I’m surprised how it has gotten this far and no one is saying anything. What if Google were to screen our search results? They are all too powerful and we are all too dependent on Google. I am in Google all day at work, searching for contact information for certain people in the government industry. That’s how I get speakers for my events. I am able, with no prior connection to any of these people, to get an office telephone number, an e-mail address, even a mobile phone.

Have you Googled yourself recently? What comes up? Probably your social media web site profiles, including your work information. I try to be very careful what I post online with my name. I’m a very private person and I don’t want any sensitive information floating in cyberspace.

Everything is open in Google. Everything is fair game. But is it really? Who does Google answer to? Google’s motto is “Do no evil.” But how do we know it really is doing no evil? How can we trust this giant? Should we trust Google to do everything for the betterment of the public? According to Battelle, Google’s privacy policy shares our personal information with the law if they are “required by law or have a good faith belief that access, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or to the public.” Where does “good faith” start and end? And to protect the rights of Google? Up to what extent or situation severity?

I don’t have the answers to these questions. It would be hard to regulate Google as it is not restricted to the United States alone. Who do you think should regulate Google and the other search engines? Do you think this is going to happen anytime soon? Or at all? It seems a pretty impossible feat.

Tips and Tricks to Starting a Blog

What is it like to blog? How does a blogger live his life? How can one person hold a fulltime job, go to school at night, have a life on the weekends, and yet blog every single day?

What happens when you want to blog about your company and your company is putting a lid on it? How do you express what you want without making your employer unhappy? Is there a legal way to do this?

This things are discussed in Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. In this book, the authors discuss the correct way of joining the blogosphere community.

Below are a few things to think about if you are thinking of starting your own blog. I’m not going to go in detail about each section.. you’ll just have to read the book J

Tip #1: What’s in a name? Search engine results. When thinking of writing a blog, think carefully what you are going to call yourself. Names go a long way if you would like to get more people to “discover” your blog. It must be something related to what you want to write about as well as something interesting.

Tip #2: Read a bunch of blogs before you start. Discover what other bloggers are writing about what you want to write about. What is hot, what isn’t. Who are the authority bloggers in that topic? One way to find out is to go to Technorati.com and find the high authority bloggers that write about your topic.

Tip #3: Keep it simple. Keep it focused. In essence, do not write about your pet if your blog is about the financial industry. No matter how important your pet is to you, your readers won’t appreciate the diversion from the topic. You have to remember, everyone is busy and is bombarded with information. Therefore, if you give your readers something they do not want to read, you will lose them.

Tip #4: Demonstrate passion. According to Scoble and Israel, the easiest way to show your passion to your online readers is to post often. Especially if you are just starting your blog. People want content. You have to give them a reason to visit your web site. Keep them interested.

Tip #5: Show your authority. Again, Technorati.com.

Tip #6: Add comments. When you have garnered enough attention to your blog, give your readers a chance to return back the favor by letting them have a conversation with you. Interaction is key to being a respectable blogger. Even if readers do not agree with your opinion, they appreciate the fact that they are able to voice out their own opinion.

Tip #7: Be accessible. Be able to at least give your readers a way to contact you. E-mail is sufficient if you do not want to give out your phone number.

Tip #8: Tell a story. This goes back to captivating your audience. Don’t give a lecture. Be animated, lively. Have a conversation with your online readers.

Tip #9: Be linky. This tip is also stressed by my professor, Nicco Mele. The more “linky” your web site is to other web sites, the more chances people will discover your blog.

Tip #10: Get out into the real world. This is common sense. Do not forget the real world paying close attention to the bloggers’ real world a.k.a. bloggers’ conferences. It is important that other bloggers know you in person.

Tip #11: Use your referrer log. In short, use all available resources.

By following these tips, you’re sure to have a successful online presence!

More Musings from Dan Gillmor’s We the Media

This has been a long standing argument between my boyfriend and I. He believes people are innately good. I believe we are innately evil. Why else would we need to have laws in place.. to make killing someone illegal? It’s because if we don’t have these laws, people will do as they please. It is every man for himself. However, I read something that might just make me concede to his point.

I was reading We the Media by Dan Gillmor and he was talking about Wikipedia and its success which is brought on by millions of volunteers. Wikipedia is an online reference web site where anyone and I mean anyone, can edit and re-edit posts about anything and everything. I literally had to stop reading when Gillmor, at the end of his paragraph on Wikipedia said, “People are generally good.” He is right. If there more volunteers who police each other and correct a cyber-vandalism in a Wikipedia article than the “bad guys”, then maybe people are innately good.

Then again, I also think the glass is half empty.

HOWEVER, that’s not to say that I think the glass is half empty and I just sit there. I try to help out with my community so that I can try to help bring some good in this world. For instance, I volunteer with two local nonprofit organizations—one of which lacks an online presence. I have been trying to persuade the board of directors that they need to, essentially, keep up with the times and enter the world of social media web sites, nonprofit blogging (which we will discuss further), and digital fundraising.

There are a myriad of reasons why nonprofit organizations should join the online bandwagon. One web site that I like referring local organizations to is the Nonprofit Blog Exchange (www.nonprofitblogexchange.blogspot.com). They have hundreds, if not thousands, of resources on how to start, maintain, and refute rumors through the world wide web.

The Internet has brought on countless of ways people keep in touch. Through the Internet, we’ve also become citizen journalists in our own right—whether blogging/reporting about local events or international events, done right, our blogs could reach thousands of people. When that happens, we become a voice that represents each and everyone of us. People start to listen.

Although this isn’t to say that all bloggers are writing about the latest current events. Actually, more bloggers start writing by talking about themselves. There are those who never lift off and get addicted to self-promotion over the Internet. Take Julia Allison (www.juliaallison.com) for instance. Ms. Allison is known in the online world as someone who is in love with herself, will do anything for fame and promotes herself endlessly. She has gotten quite successful, landing herself a cover shoot for Wired magazine not too long ago. For some people, this kind of self-attention clamor should be permanently deleted from cyberspace. I actually like Ms. Allison. I’ve read some of her blogs and seen some of her videos and for the most part, they are amusing. What other people fail to realize is, and Mr. Gillmor, you are part of this crowd, not everyone who writes on the web will want to talk about current events. Some people will actually want to read something interesting and light during a five-minute break from whatever it is that their doing. And by some, I mean me. If I want to read the latest news, I know to go to nyt.com or cnn.com.

I do have a question though, when you get yourself a blog web site and talk about anything that tickles your bone, are you then automatically considered as a citizen journalist? Or do you need to write about the news to be considered a citizen journalist?

SMS Text Messaging Makes History

Dan Gillmor mentions the SMS phenomenon in his book entitled, “We the Media” where he talked about the EDSA Revolution in 2001. I had just moved to the United States and one day in 2001, my friends and family were texting and calling me saying they were about to have the country’s second people’s revolution to overthrow the then president Estrada (he was later found guilty of corruption and now spends his time on house arrest). The people’s revolution was remarkable. Planning was almost nonexistent due to the fact that people were scared that the government might declare a martial law. They had to act quickly and the vehicle the people used to spread the word was SMS text messaging. How revolutionary is that?? Millions of people rallied and eventually, the President of the Philippines did not have a choice but to step down. The Filipino people won.

Now THAT is technology in motion.

I have been using SMS (short message services) since I was in high school ten years ago. Asia is known for having the most advanced cell phones and cell phone services before Europe or the United States. When I moved to the United States for college, I quickly searched for a U.S. cell phone company with SMS text messaging capability so that I could keep in touch with my friends back home.. and this was in the year 2000. Lo and behold, no one knew what I was talking about—except for T-mobile (they were called Voicestream at the time) and even then, they were only doing research and did not have an actual running service for consumers. I chose T-mobile and within a few months, they offered SMS text messaging to their subscribers. When they first started the service, you could text message anywhere in the world and the rates were the same. It was great. I was happily texting away and people who saw me in the streets were probably thinking I was playing a game in my cell phone as my thumb flew around the keypad of my cell phone. Unfortunately, cell phone companies got smarter and decided not to cover international SMS text messages and charge consumers five cents per message. Shoot. I had to find another way to keep in touch. Thanks to a myriad of social media web sites (which we will discuss in the future) I can keep up-to-date with my friends and family back home. I can chat with them online and even view a live video whenever we chat online.

It is amazing how far we have come in a span of ten years. Now we have the YouTube phenomenon, webcasts and social media web sites to name a few. Because of the media evolution, we even have citizen journalists we can use as news sources. Everyone is connected in some way or the other. Is this necessarily a good thing? Where do you think the media is headed? What do you think is the next big thing?