An unexpected family emergency now finds me sitting in the offices of an online marketing company. So I am doing Thing 13-Social Networking.
No one in this office of 6 is over 28. All are college graduates. All have had other jobs since graduation. My way of applying for a job is to use a resume on nice bond paper. These folks used Facebook, My Space, Craigs List and in person networking.
Watching them in action, they are listening to info on “Hubspot”, sharing computer screens (there are at least 2 computers per person—some have 3), things are rather quiet except for a lot of keyboarding. They text on Blackberries a lot. There have been some conference calls. The company does marketing for clients, putting info on to Facebook and MySpace and into blogs where interest has been shown in their clients. They went to a concert last night as the guest of a band and that band might stop by today to discuss and advertising campaign to keep their name in the buzz until their new CD is released in mid-winter. Interesting.
So this is a good atmosphere to read Thing 13 and the Pew Internet & American Life Project . I am happy with the info in the report that students continue to be active off line, with the percentage involved in sports and school clubs, etc. Wonder if some of the data is already out of date, for instance why instant message when you can text with your cell phone, and so many people have gotten new cellphones with texting capacity since this was written.
(DIGG? What is this? It was an option in the 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally article.. )
Before MILI I joined both My Space and Facebook with pseudonyms! I was interested in having entities for the school, not for me. This was too time consuming AND I could not access either one from the school’s protective firewall. In addition, I was part of the Gardenweb Kitchen Forum, which is a place to share questions & answers on kitchen remodels. Viewing photos of works in progress became an obsession, as I dream of what I’d like to do if only….
I also got to post both questions and answers. Kind of fun to see what responses.
I joined Facebook but again with a different name. Call me chicken. Both of my children found me, which lead to just about everyone in our worlds trying to join me as friend. If you have your own page and you have friends, they can post photos and comments, which need monitoring, even if you have the page restricted. My son removed his picture from his Facebook page and replaced it with his x-ray --no verbiage. It really sparked communication. A picture WAS worth a thousand words
I find it interesting. I am the oldest of 4 girls & 1 boy, the youngest being 45. Our parents are getting older and, at the request of 3 siblings, I set up a blog with Google. That did not work, as that 6th sib refused to use it & 1 could not log in. But 3 sibs have contacted my Pseudonym Facebook and asked to be friends! How much time are people—older people—spending on social networks? It’s not like we don’t talk on the phone or have mom fill each one of us in on what the others are doing.
I did have a student teacher for about a month this year. She used a Minnesota library blog to post a question I had about funding sources. IF there was more time, this might be interesting to belong to. As it is, I am fortunate to have so many colleagues in the Minneapolis system who usually will respond to a group e-mail. Although e-mails may be going out of vogue, according to this reading, I still find it helpful.