Online Presence

After reading social networking has its perks and several other articles on online identities one thought came to mind: be careful what you put online. Recruiters are actively looking at your presence online to make you more than just a name on a resume. What they find could possibly come back to haunt you. Where this becomes more and more apparent as you get older is facebook. Half of my friends, and myself have hidden pictures and name changing is becoming more and more popular as people look for jobs. On that same token, your online presence can help you if you take time to ensure that it presents you well.

Instant Collaboration

This sounds almost too good to be true. The ability to interact with entire teams, regardless of location at any time and instantly would revolutionize any team-based industry. I'm sure every business traveler would love to use these services instead of dealing with airport security, traffic and all other hassles associated with traveling. I have a feeling that the service Yuugu is only the first of many and that big companies will start developing proprietary systems to avoid service fees.

Applying this same system to government doesn't sound as revolutionary as it does for business, however. Isn't the idea that we are all invited to participate in government anyways? Will commenting on a congressman's blog or messageboard garner anymore attention than writing a letter? Sure it's easier and more convenient but I have a feeling the congressional interns of Government 2.0 will replace "responding" to concerned citizens letters with equally thoughtful responses to these comments.

Can You Hire Me Now?

Verizon has built its brand on its network. Its size and reliability has turned them into the most successful wireless company in the world. Your own personal brand will take more than that.

LinkedIn and other professional networking can definitely be useful tools especially for initial meetings. Quick lookups can definitely help cure awkward silences during interview and Q&A is essentially an online brainstorm. These can help both job seekers and companies.

I agree a lot with the Fast Company article, "It's Not Just Who You Know." Companies will only hold you as dear as distant facebook friends until you've made a more personal connection. I can't see people getting jobs solely because of their vast network or their ability to network. Your credentials and personality do that, it's only a value added.

Rave Alert: We're inseperable from our cellphones

Then again that's nothing new to many of us. Losing cellphones causes greater separation anxiety than separating conjoined twins nowadays. As far as MoSoSo is concerned though, I'm not entirely sold. I thought the point of a cellphone was to be able to socialize when you were mobile. I personally wouldn't want a friend to send me pictures of where they were in order to meet up...enough with the scavenger hunt just call, or more likely, text me. The only thing worse than that is the GPS capabilities between phones. That just screams big brother in my opinion. Combined with the fact that if you don't turn your alarm off the campus police are called? No thanks, I'll take the risk of walking by myself over running the risk of campus security showing up uninvited.

As for the thumb novels, I'll let the Japanese keep them. There's easy enough access to actual content on the mobile internet. And how can you kill a two hour commute with 350-1000 word "novels"? You'd have to read hundreds. I don't see any point in them. If you do, enlighten me...in 140 characters or less.

Now that the snow gods and Verizon have given me the internet back, I can get to the important things.

Blogging has to be tough for corporations. Offering that level of transparency and intimacy with individual customers is completely backwards from most marketing and advertising. The blogger has to have a "conversation" with potentially millions of viewers. And the really scary thing about conversations is you have to deal with what the other person says...good or bad and with everybody watching. This kind of customer service can't be outsourced to India, and worse yet it has to be constantly maintained. Marketing being about establishing a relationship with customers can't just be another company line.

What is this, amateur hour?

So a nobel laureate thinks the internet is making us stupider? I'm going to have to disagree. It's just giving the stupid people a bigger audience. People have been saying things that are lies, or misinterpretations of facts or even completely made up forever. Now however, thanks to blogs and twitter and even wikipedia, these untruths are being broadcast all over the world. The same is true for the correct information as well. You can find something true on the internet just as easily as something false. The internet isn't making us stupider, it's making us more informed for better or for worse.

Also, just because someone isn't formally recognized as an expert in a field, doesn't make them unreliable or wrong. While you need a certain amount of expertise to be regarded as an authority in something, the opposite isn't true.

Crowd surfing: the new internet

It seems today that the modern internet is based on the opinion of the majority. Sites such as Wikipedia just let one person create a page of "knowledge" and let several other people ratify that opinion until it's accepted as some web 2.0 doctrine. Is websourcing the internet beneficial or does it just let the more outspoken of the internet population dictate what is and isn't true?