Jadimauro’s Weblog

So I haven’t really been paying much attention to the presendential campaigns lately, I go through spurts where I check things out. So I went to Hillary Clinton’s website and I was really impressed with the website. It had a lot of information and I felt as though if there were an issue I was curious about I would most likely be able to find the answer. So I checked out the videos on the website and I was surprised at how many videos were on the site. Then I checked out something called Hillcasts which is essentially Hillary’s webcast about issues that she thinks are important. I think that she is really focusing on reaching a broader younger audience and realizing that with the popularity of things like youtube.com she can really reach some people.

So then I went to Barack Obama’s website and it seemed the same but it did not have videos and it did not have something similar to the Hillcasts that Hillary was doing. It had a blog and I thought that it might be Obama addressing issues but it was other people addressing issues. For me I want to hear what he has to say and I think that he doesn’t have to do a “Hillcast”, although I think it would benefit him, he should maybe start blogging. He could at least have someone blogging for him and say that he did it.

Hillary seems to be making attempts to reach younger people on their level and I think it would really benefit Barack to do the same.

So after reading these chapters I decided to check out Joshua Allen’s blog and it seemed like a great thing. I definetely understand the perspective of John Wiley that this is good way for evil corporations to connect with their customers and show them that they are somwhat human. And I agree that eventually all companies will blog and it will benefit them.

My problem with this is that what happens when the blog is controlled by those evil coprporations and an evil CEO is dictating everything that is typed in the blog. It could be that I am cynical to those evil corporations and anything I hear about them I take with a grain of salt. But I think that when all corporations realize that blogging can help their company relate to their customers they will use it and no longer will blogs be a place of honesty and perspective. When large corporations begin controlling blogs I think it will be the death of blogging. I think that large corporations have trouble not controlling everything that is involved with their companies and I think that it will be very difficult for them to have a laissez faire attitude toward blogs. I think that these chapters in the Naked Conversation have made me realize that one day blogging will not have a non-corporate feel and eventually the day will come when I read a blog and think I wonder what CEO dictated that.

After reading these articles and signing up for second life I began thinking is this something that should be only for play or should it be something that becomes corporate. For me I think that play and corporate are something that should be completely separate. As the article “Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon” stated that play is a freedom. It is a way to escape the world and enter a different world without the pressure and the stress. I think that is what second life should be, now although I am new to this second life thing for me I want a way to escape the business world and I think that fact that businesses are using second life is not a good thing. I think that these should be two separate places, one for business and one for pleasure.

The business aspect of something like second life is a great thing especially in the experience economy. It is a way for businesses to give the consumer something new each time. I think that second life can only really benefit businesses as more consumers begin to live inside their games.

On a more personal note I really do not know what to think of this. I think it sounds like a really cool game and I definetely will check it out but I just feel like I have too many better things to do with my life than sit in front of a computer and live in a fantasy world. I’m not saying that everyone who plays this lives in this world but I think some people do and I think it is ok for them but it just doesn’t work for me. I definetely play video games and I like them and there have definetely been times when I have played for too long but it is easy for me shut the games off. I think that if this is a reality for some people they might really have trouble shutting this off. Games like second life scare me a bit because I think it is very easy to become addicted and I think creating an alternate world makes it much more addicting than video games. I think that for me I would much rather experience real things than things in a computer game. I guess the way that I play is different than others and I guess that is true for everyone.

I am interested to see where this will go in the next five years. Does anyone play second life for fun? Can you tell me what your experiences have been? How much do you play?

We’ve got a topic, so we just want to divide up the work, get some ideas out and discuss and put our idea in a direction and come up with a proposal and then get to work.

Blogs and online journalism are definetely a challenge to mainstream journalism. It is a way for a user to continue research and go more in depth about stories that are presented in mainstream media as Axel Bruns stated in “Wikinews: The Next Generation of Alternative Online News?”. But as Sunstein’s “Democracy and Filtering” article states could it possibly makes us avoid other opinions.

I think that this is a great question, for me I had only really thought about the positives that online journalism and blogs had brought to people. It is easy, convenient, and can go more in depth than a newspaper because there is not a limited amount of space. But can it also make our knowledge of issues completely one sided. Could we become so involved in the “Daily Me” that we don’t really care about other issues and other opinions about these issues.

For me Walter Bender’s “Daily Me” article brings up a point that in his final experiment the hope was to make people have stronger journalistic skills and be more critical of information that is presented. And I think that this is what blogs and online news are doing for people. It is making them look at things in a different way and making them better experts on certain things. But I do think that it is very easy for people to isolate themselves from other ideas and other groups of people.

In the “Wikinews” article, wikinews was struggling because of lack of personalization and no one really wants to give just the facts online, they want options to give their opinions. And I think that wikinews is a nice attempt to have an unbiased site online but I think people want more than just the facts, the facts are just too boring. If it were possible the next struggle to create the great online newspaper or blog would have more than one perspective presented on a certain topic. If both perspectives were in the same place it would allow people to more easily compare and also have a greater knowledge of a subject. I’ve never really seen a site that does this but I think that maybe in a somewhat utopian world this would be helpful to keep people more informed. Maybe on certain issues one perspective would write and article and then the complete opposite perspective could write the same article, just a thought. If anyone has seen a site like this please let me know.

I think that there are so many good things that can come from online journalism but I just think that we have to be open to the fact that we need to explore outside our personal interests and be open to other things. I think think that it is completely possible for a person to be one dimensional about their news online and that scares me especially for upcoming presedential elections. And after reading the Sunstein article I think I will try to be a little bit more open and broad with the news that I look up online.

I feel like in “High Preformance Project Team” the four rules sound really great and I’m sure in a perfect world they would work but this is the real world and things don’t necessarily work like that, I think that we can strive to achieve those things as best we can and then we just have to hope for the best.

The whole time I was reading the parts discussing the role of the leader I kept thinking about my white water rafting trip this weekend and how we needed a leader to do well because in the beginning we really didn’t have a leader and we had some problems with our raft but then when we delegated a leader, we began to work much better as a team. After that the trip was much smoother, well as smooth as a white water rafting trip can be.

When I was working at post production house for the Food Network I really got a taste of what a good leader can bring to a group and how a bad leader can ruin a dynamic. When I first started we had one leader and things ran very smoothly and the entire office got along really well, we all respected one another and things were done on time and properly. Then my boss went on maternity leave and we got a new boss. And this boss had a different demeanor and talked down to you. She also had no real experience in post production and she was pretty much clueless and she was always watching over you to the point of nagging. Suddenly the office wasn’t so fun anymore and we all started to resent working there and our boss. And actually I left there because of that boss and a few other people followed.

I think that this article gives some good guidelines and tips but I feel like there are so many more things that can affect a group than can be written. I think group situations are tricky and I think that even if people don’t have the best experience working in a group setting but things are accomplished properly then I don’t think that it really matters. In the case with my new boss things weren’t being done properly and weren’t being done the way they should have which only combined with a horrible working situation to make me leave. I think that if things were being done properly it would have been easier for me to stay because I did really enjoy my co-workers.

I think that in “Working Smart” the layouts that they give also work well in a non-virtual setting, I mean not so in detail but assigning things and telling people when they should be finished so that the group can continue is good in both the virtual world and the actual world.

I don’t know I’ve never really been on a virtual team, I mean I have communicated with people over emails and IM’s to get projects accomplished but for the most part I feel like in those situations we all were going to meet back up at some point and figure things out. I think that for me face to face interaction in the group scenario works much better. I feel like it is easier for me to communicate things face to face. I also feel like it is easier for me to get a feel for people if I meet them face to face. I think that it is harder for me to feel out what time of team member they will be just through emails and etc. But I do understand that in some situations it is just easier. I think that the readings from last week will really be dependent on strong virtual teams that can communiate properly and effectively to achieve tasks.

All in all I think that if you combine both of the readings and take a little from both you can probably be an effective leader and hopefully create successful groups. Although there are so many factors that go into groups that are very intangible but all in all I think that if you follow some of these guidelines you just might be a bit more effective. I’m not going to say that you’re going to be the greatest but maybe just a little bit better.