Engage Chp. 1-2

So the revolution is here. Technology has formed a new wave of communication for individuals and businesses. That means there are personal and business benefits to committing to the times of a new wave communication. The title of the book makes itself well justified in the intro chapter explaining the interaction between product and customer. The revolution is here, evidence being what has happened in countries where the people have united and communicated plans throughout the web and fostered ideas. Companies must recogonize the magnitude. Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter are the names behind the frontier, but lets see how far those companies go, or will it shift all together to a new facet of communication, and this is merely the beginning. Props to the web browsers.

Chapter 7-8 Groundswell Reaction

In our class, we have been focusing on interaction and response as a vital part to gaining positive exposure online. Each company that has had a good reaction time to people and users problems have come out with an excellent following. The eBag example is no different. The priority for companies social media pages, is to update not just by engaging a sales pitch, but update users questions and complaints. Off that, people will talk outside of just the organizations network, and potentially bring more users and readers in. Blowing up in popularity and exposure. Becuase another great point the chapter makes is, who do we trust online? and the answer is, 83%-"opinion of a friend or acquaintance who has used the product or service." Its funny because once companies address the problem at the source with the customer, they are going to have to frame a new set of employees and resources. This is a new age in which customer service won't only be about taking it to a rented out piece of space to discuss complications for a certain amount of time. Companies are addressing these problems much quicker, they just need to make sure to stick around for the long haul.

Chapter 4-6 Groundswell Reaction

In the first paragraph they mention a company who did something different in 2007. I worked at Sears as a high school senior, and still do; 4 years, too long. They began using a program called Pebble, in which it creates an environment for people within the organization to stream information. It acts exactly as Facebook, where an employee has a title: Name, and a small bio describing hobbies and skills. Anyone within the network can follow, or linkup with another employees profile. There are also big corporate bosses on there sending messages and event shout outs. And the Groundswell chapter makes an excellent point of the POST goals. (People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology) The funny thing is, is on the Pebble site, there are direct representations of these kind of factors. The is a direct result of the fluid and vast amount of information out there at the publics disposale and how companies will try and take advantage of the opportunity for spreading the word or the goals of the community at hand.
I agree that the "Groundswell conversation" is gigantic giving users and receivers lots of methods and options for obtaining information. There tips they offer in the 6th chapter are concrete. (Post a viral video, engage in social networks, join the blogosphere, create a community) Basically encouraging and offering tips how to blog and what to blog.
A blog is an excellent way to broadcast an individuals opinion, and social networks formulate excellent ways to filter all the information.

Gender Perspective: Vagina Monologues

Back in 2007 I was able to watch a performance of the Vagina Monologues in Austin, TX. The performance was located at a venue outside called The Enchanted Forest. Typical shows included independent, amateur events such as fire dancing, interpretive theatre and music artist (DJ and performance). At the time, I had never heard or seen the Vagina Monologues. After hearing the title, I thought of it as a play in which women were the focus. As a male, I had no idea what to expect, and that gave the monologues more influence in leaving a long standing impression on my thoughts and future actions.
After the first couple minutes, the audience was in a trance. There was a huge turnout to watch the performances, more than 500 people. I had never heard such a graphic account of women's experiences, ecspecially of sexual molestation and harassment. It was shocking because of how our culture teaches us at an early age not to talk about denotations and connotations of vaginas. Not until this semester, 2011, when I watched the movie "VDay: Until the Violence Stops" did I understand the significance. Eve Ensler, the leader behind raising and gaining awareness for women and their experiences, made some excellent points about the "culture of silence" and by advocating for silence, one in a sense is advocating for the oppressive facets that are horrendous and unacceptable. Her emphasis is for our culture, the global culture of women and men, to not shun and silent experiences. Even if those experiences may be negative. Because the underlying issue that needs to be addressed is for females to have the opportunity and confidence to relay their experiences, to develop off those experiences; but in large that whatever experience it is, it is the same significance and same importance and same influence as any male experience. Women should be encouraged to live through their experiences, therefore evening the plane between gender expectations.

Reaction to "Social Media Reading – Influencers"

The article addresses a great point, the companies should take advantage of the social media opinion world because its free and its there. The web acts as many resources for organizations and companies, for them not to use it is not smart. "For companies not engaging in the social media marketing conversation with their customers, they miss out on a literal world of opinion, market research, feedback and customer service opportunities."

The article is a great way to set up accounts and know which way to go because it gives some tips. By providing relevant information it allows the readers to gain more trust and therefore want to listen to future messages. Another good point the article made was that after you launch, you as a company need to maintain relationships with other users. Setting it up is only the beginning, having people correspond with the users and the opinions is essential to controlling a companies online image.

Social Influencers

Social media is a fluid between the cyber world and the tangible environment we live in. In that sense, certain people are more significant in social media contexts and can create opportunities for others trying to gain influence in the cyber world. The trick is to find who influencers are and understand the relativity of what they are saying. There are plenty of articulate people able to read something and repeat it. The trick is finding who the main sources are and how does they have those sources.
In class we talked about different methods for finding people over the web. We went through twitter and were able to set up a network of people to follow who may have informative comments or advice for people wanting to gain expertise in a certain field. We also were able to find people through social bookmarks, and trace those posts back to the original user. Therefore, if a user is the original user more often, then most likely he is going to be an influencer, and someone who produces positive benefits to the social media context and world of ideas.
Ben Straley has a good article posted in the Mashable:

Flier Ruckus

This image was the center of controversy some weeks back. It was printed on the front cover of the Daily Texan. The article was talking about the University of Texas's decisions to cut back funding for ethnic studies (though that wasn't the only thing the University had to cut back on). This image showing the president of the University and his coworker in KKK garb brought about an uproar from both sides. Some saying that it should be allowed because it is relevant and freedom of speech. Others saying that it is a severe miss at an analogy because a lot of horrible things happened at the hands of the KKK, and cutting funding for a school should not be comparable to the other horrendous acts. I think the school paper, The Daily Texan could've put the image in the paper, just not on the front page. Front page is seen by anyone who comes in contact with the newspaper, accidently or on purpose. At least if the image is put on page 3 or whatever it won't offend as many people because people got to that page with some prior knowledge of the article and see what is coming.
Whose fault is it that the image caused such an uproar? The Daily Texan, for printing the image on the front page, or the University for making necessary cuts to multiple programs.

Are Kids more Accountable than Adults?

At the beginning of the year, University of Texas football coach, Will Muschamp left for the head coaching position at powerhouse University of Florida. In the time Will Muschamp was at Texas, he was designated head coach in waiting. Basically meaning, when Mack Brown retires, Muschamp will take over. With the title, he also received a large salary increase to reiterate our commitment to him being the future head coach of the Longhorns. With all this said, he decided to leave to another school. Within the past month, UT hired a replacement Defensive Back coach, Jeff Gray. Gray was an alum and seemed to be in the "dream job." Yesterday, he decided to leave.

My issue is, where does loyalty stand today? Not just in sports but with business and entertainment, individuals are stepping outside the convention of working for a cause or purpose to benefit themselves, at any cost. Gray used the Texas job as leverage in the NFL and did not even coach one day there before being hired into a more prestige position. I know we should root for the individuals success, but to what extent. People, adults have no more sense of accountability then children. In many ways, adults and public figures are worse for setting examples for ethical practices and appropriate methods.
When I get my first job to where I sign a contract stating the terms on which I will work and for what, I will fulfill that contract. Screw all the selfish, narcissistic people who think they are #1. Cause people are not all #1, you have to earn it.

Reaction to Gladwell

After reading Malcolm Gladwell's article, "Small Change" I agree with some of the contexts he points out as being important. The tweeter accounts in Iran may have been significant towards creating a support for the community, but I do not believe it was the make or break in response to peoples actions. People would have acted or responded the same with or without tweets.
In the article "From Innovation to Revolution", Clay Shirky brings an excellent point up when he talks about identifying the right subject for the question. "So I would break Gladwell's question of whether social media solved a problem that actually needed solving into two parts: Do social media allow insurgents to adopt new strategies? And have those strategies ever been crucial?" In both questions I would answer yes. The power of the internet is sharing and exchanging knowledge, and some of this knowledge may be strategies for new methods of leadership or lifestyles. By offering the opportunity or option to internet users it allows for websites, servers to attract more traffic. If the website or server is informative and reliable then users can gain valuable strategies that in the correct context are crucial or necessary for success.

No Internet in Egypt

Within the past week or so, the country of Egypt decided it would be best to cut off communication and use with the Internet. From reports, different international media outlets reporting on the situation are also being cut off from communication. This seems to be an overreaction on the governments part to flex who can do what versus the Egyptian community. The problem is that by cutting off communication, the government now has made it a worldwide spectacle and are communicating on it from other means. The act of turning off the internet has only diminished the Egyptian government (looking scared) and raised this national situation into a problem viewed by not just the Egyptian community but by the entire world. Whose going to win?