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Hurdle hints and answers for August 8, 2026
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Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
A is for Apple (Not the Fruit)
Earlier this year, I read an article about a recent study that showed kids between the ages of 2-5 are more likley to be skilled in in the ins and outs of a smartphone, than they are with the ins and outs of tying their shoes, which in past generations was a learning/development milestone. So when I saw this image this morning, I chuckled. Signs of the times!! How ancient our childhood joys must now seem!
Lights. Camera. Fashion. And the evolution of media relations
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| Photo credit: AP Photo/Andrew Burton via Yahoo News |
Press. Publicists. Bloggers.
New York Fashion Week is on and what I love about this is how the media landscape has changed from a few years ago to what it is now. Social media has changed the face of media relations across the PR industry. Gone are the days when having a by-line in a newspaper made you the most important dude to a PR exec. Now with a laptop and an opinion, you can catch the attention of PR teams, whose eyes now have to scan new forms of media to gauge opinions about their brands and to build their brands.
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| Photo credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer via Yahoo News |
Media ownership now goes way beyond conglomerates. It lies in the keyboards of the citizens of the world. Media relations strategies now have to include and consider social media influencers in promoting the personality and image of the brand - making brands so much more accessible to so many more people. It's really fantastic how quickly things have changed.
I regularly follow one of the 24 Tumblrs - Jessica Quirke - and she is having a remarkable experience. She and the 54,000 people who follow her religiously. Amazing.
How young is too young for social media?
Imagine your child being the subject of a sinister Facebook group, where schoolmates weigh in on how much he/she sucks. This can be really traumatic on a child, and these are real concerns being raised by real parents and school administrators. But is the real enemy the technology? I mean, shouldn't the onus be on the adults to monitor what their children are doing online, especaially since there are bigger sharks out there than the neighbourhood kid with a grudge, namely the adult predators, seeking out unsupervised and vulnerable children.
Is restricting kids' use of computers the answer?. Of course not. This is the technology generation, where changes are afoot every minute. It is simply not practical for the caution tape to be placed around the computer desk in this day and age. So the questions parents should be asking then, is
- Do you know where your kids are?
- Do you know how long they stay online every day?
- Do you know what your kids are sharing online?
- Do you know what content they are posting?
- Do you know if they are being talked about or if they are doing the talking?
- Do you know if they are being malicious to other children online?
- Have you talked to them about social media?
- Does their school have a social media policy for its students?
- Are their teachers monitoring their online activity at school?
And if they are using these sites,
- Are you their friend?
- Can you access their profiles and the info on them?
- How are they using them?
I have allowed my kids to have one. I set up their accounts....to make sure that they can't be found by just anyone. Actually, after I went to look for them, before I was their friend, I couldn't find them. Their friends haven't been able to find them either, so unless I provide a direct link, they can't be found, unless they are on someone else's list. They have gotten requests from people they don't know, and I have told them, not to accept anyone they don't know. I go and check their accounts and their friends list on a regular basis and if they can't tell me where they know the person from, then I delete them. This has only happened once in the last 6 months. As anything in life, if the parent is involved in their kids' life, and give them good instruction, most of the time, it's ok. It's also been a great way for my family that lives far away to talk to the kids. We don't live close to family...it's a great way to keep them connected. - Felis (www.squidoo.com/kids-on-facebook)
Some don't agree.
I think that allowing them into some sort of social networking site is good in order to teach them internet responsibility - however - it seems pretty impossible to navigate facebook without seeing things inappropriate for children. An kids orientated alternative I might agree to, but facebook? No. - kab (www.squidoo.com/kids-on-facebook)
There are more kid-friendly social networking sites like FBFKids and Club Penguin, but the other sites will always be there for anyone who wants to sign up, child or adult. And so will mobile phones, television, video games and all the other bells and whistles which come with our technological evolution and that come with their own "dangers".
The question is, where will you be?
Great article on the use of social media in the classroom.
Friday Peeve: The Black Elephant in the Room
Thanks to Guy #1 and Guy #2, you get this post. It's not a discourse, just an observation but stay tuned when we will have an awesome guest post from one of these gentlemen (you will just have to wait to see which one) about this phenomenon.
So last night I had the privilege at being at a very swanky function (which I almost never made it to but that story is from my lips to God's ears). Decor was gorgeous. Food, fantastic. The general ambience was amazing. Beautiful people, beautiful setting. Great performances. Great friends. Great moments. Except...
For the guy in front of me with the Blackberry who insisted on snapping everything that moved and those things that did not move as well. I mean....REALLY???
And Lord help me, I was really close to taking out my own Blackberry and taking a photo of how stupid he looked but it seemed too stupid to even be ironic.
As with most of these types of events, the onus was on mingling and networking, in addition to being sold the creativity of talented people. So I would have expected this dude, like others, to be meeting people, commenting on how amazing the place looked, perhaps exchanging business cards, making some contacts. Nope. His aim in life was to take photos with this phone of his. It was as though noone else in the room existed unless you were the subject of the photo. What was most annoying was when the performance started and by this time, people had started to get loose and were having fun and shaking a little rump. Not my buddy, BlackBerry Avenger. He was snapping away. When his hand and his 6th finger aka the BB blocked my view of the great performance in front of me, that's when it became extremely personal.
I mean...why? I know I touched on this earlier this week - this phenomenon with technology, to the point that we lose sight of the things happening around us - but this guy was the poster child. He even took photos of the REAL photographers doing REAL photography. I am sure today his friends have in their Facebook feeds "Jack's night out - 100 new photos".
Pyscho!
I would hate to be a boss who sends my people to an event to network and instead of doing that they get lost in their BBs and miss the big picture. And there it is - missing the bigger picture. Relationships are under threat if these people attached to their smartphones are set to take over the world. Be it personal relationships - because the Avenger came with a significant other, who was forced to dance alone - or professional relationships. So while the technology strengthen social networks, it seems to, in some cases, adversely impact and denigrate relationships.
I also have a problem with the intrusiveness of camera phones. I once caught a weird, pervy man trying to take a photo of me with his phone. He insisted he was not, that he was sending a text but one does not normally hold a phone like this...
to send a text message, do you? He needed to read this.
It seems many people do not realise that their actions, besides being acutely annoying, also often can leave them on the periphery of human interaction. And while photography is an art I admire and wish I were more passionate about, it is now being cannibalised by people like BB Avenger. Mobile phone photography is not always, but can become a menace depending on the person yielding the weapon of choice - be it Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia etc. And while you may share a deep initmacy and a strong, unbreakable bond with your device, it should not affect my enjoyment or impact on my comfort level. This is an awesome statement that describes the beast:
"Public places are commonly “colonized” by the private lives of mobile individuals"
I will further revise and say "public places are being terrorised by mobile individuals". And while mobile technology has brought communications to a state of "anywhere, anytime", please, let's not take it that literally. It should NOT be anywhere everytime. I think we all have a personal responsibility when it comes to mobile phones and the accompanying tools. Let's use discretion and let's take a load off and get a grip when it comes to brandishing these devices in the public domain where other people are trying to have fun. Silly us for wanting that.
For the guy in front of me with the Blackberry who insisted on snapping everything that moved and those things that did not move as well. I mean....REALLY???
And Lord help me, I was really close to taking out my own Blackberry and taking a photo of how stupid he looked but it seemed too stupid to even be ironic.
As with most of these types of events, the onus was on mingling and networking, in addition to being sold the creativity of talented people. So I would have expected this dude, like others, to be meeting people, commenting on how amazing the place looked, perhaps exchanging business cards, making some contacts. Nope. His aim in life was to take photos with this phone of his. It was as though noone else in the room existed unless you were the subject of the photo. What was most annoying was when the performance started and by this time, people had started to get loose and were having fun and shaking a little rump. Not my buddy, BlackBerry Avenger. He was snapping away. When his hand and his 6th finger aka the BB blocked my view of the great performance in front of me, that's when it became extremely personal.
I mean...why? I know I touched on this earlier this week - this phenomenon with technology, to the point that we lose sight of the things happening around us - but this guy was the poster child. He even took photos of the REAL photographers doing REAL photography. I am sure today his friends have in their Facebook feeds "Jack's night out - 100 new photos".
Pyscho!
I would hate to be a boss who sends my people to an event to network and instead of doing that they get lost in their BBs and miss the big picture. And there it is - missing the bigger picture. Relationships are under threat if these people attached to their smartphones are set to take over the world. Be it personal relationships - because the Avenger came with a significant other, who was forced to dance alone - or professional relationships. So while the technology strengthen social networks, it seems to, in some cases, adversely impact and denigrate relationships.
I also have a problem with the intrusiveness of camera phones. I once caught a weird, pervy man trying to take a photo of me with his phone. He insisted he was not, that he was sending a text but one does not normally hold a phone like this...
to send a text message, do you? He needed to read this.
It seems many people do not realise that their actions, besides being acutely annoying, also often can leave them on the periphery of human interaction. And while photography is an art I admire and wish I were more passionate about, it is now being cannibalised by people like BB Avenger. Mobile phone photography is not always, but can become a menace depending on the person yielding the weapon of choice - be it Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia etc. And while you may share a deep initmacy and a strong, unbreakable bond with your device, it should not affect my enjoyment or impact on my comfort level. This is an awesome statement that describes the beast:
"Public places are commonly “colonized” by the private lives of mobile individuals"
I will further revise and say "public places are being terrorised by mobile individuals". And while mobile technology has brought communications to a state of "anywhere, anytime", please, let's not take it that literally. It should NOT be anywhere everytime. I think we all have a personal responsibility when it comes to mobile phones and the accompanying tools. Let's use discretion and let's take a load off and get a grip when it comes to brandishing these devices in the public domain where other people are trying to have fun. Silly us for wanting that.
A Blast from the Past
Yesterday while looking for something on my bookshelf, I found this. Don't laugh.
Okay, I know you laughed. I remember when I bought that cell phone back in 2002. That phone was the hottest thing on the market and there were ooh's and aah's when I bought my new Nokia. Now, it's nothing more than a paper weight. I never got rid of it because it was my first phone and then, my kids could probably laugh about it one day, the way we laugh about 8-tracks with our parents. I can hear it now.
- So ummm...what did this phone do? Could you take photos with it? Can you check email on it? What about blogging...can I send a blog post with it? What does it do?
- Ummm..you could call a friend and get calls and...oh...you could send text messages!
- That's all??
But it goes to show how communication has changed and keeps changing. 2002 was not that far off was it? But then, think even further back to when we used to put pen to paper and write letters. In high school, pen pals were all the rage, You paid like $5 and got 4 pen pals, and you would spend your weekend writing letters in your best penmanship to teenagers like yourself in Africa or Europe or North America. You would wait weeks for a reply and would light up like a bulb when you got home and there was your letter, waiting to be opened.
Then came email and the death of personalised stationery and the birth of the term "slow mail" which now described that fun activity of writing out those epistles to friends in foreign countries. But emails allowed not only faster delivery of your messages, but also allowed you to send photos and helped to foster these relationships on a deeper level since you could communicate more often, without any expense.
Chat came and the email was not the popular kid anymore. With instant messaging services like MSN and Yahoo, who needed to sit and write an email and wait for the person to check it and hopefully respond immediately? Now you could see if the person was online and talk in real time with him or her. With chat later came video chat and stuff like Skype, which signalled the near death of the telephone in our homes. I cannot tell you the last time I got a phone call on my landline.
Facebook became the ultimate relationship builder and social hot spot. So I had one of those slow mail penpals and after a while, we just sort of stopped writing and lost touch. After almost 20 years, guess where we reconnected? You guessed it. Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with dozens of people I just simply lost touch with and now it is where we all keep in touch, some simply want to macco and some like to be macco'ed (don't deny it!), share their opinions on stuff and meet new people.
And worse than me picking up the phone in my home, is me picking up a newspaper. Besides getting that yucky press ink all over my hands, the www world has made getting the news so much more convenient and accessible. And with newspapers going electronic and also with media gurus and just people with opinions on the news creating blogs and forums, feedback and discussion on current events is more prevalent and there is no longer that one-sidedness which news was all about in the past. Sure you had letters to the editor, but you had to hope your letter got chosen and then that in itself is limited cause noone can comment on your letter in real time, if anyone chooses to at all.
Blogging has brought so many different topics to so many different people. There are blogs about everything - sports, technology, food, fashion, travel (yaay), media, entertainment, sex, dating - you name it, there is a blog out there that hashes out the issues and has readers hashing right back. Isn't it fantastic?
And for the people on the move, who want to process info quickly, who want to not have to scour the cyberverse for details, there is microblogging. Twitter has really exploded over the past several months and Facebook also allows people to just simply answer the question "what am I doing now?" as well as share links to articles, news, videos, podcasts etc.
Businesses have come a long way too. The way we communicate in business has evolved as well. I always smirk when I have to print a memo in this day and age, but paper trails are still important, though I think cyber trails can work as well. Some businesses have harnessed the power of technology and employees are keeping in touch via email, Office Communicator, intranets, internal social networking platforms similar to the external ones like Facebook and Twitter.
And you were no longer slaves to your pc, but the mobility of communication changed too, with laptops and wireless internet almost anywhere you go so is it any wonder you see people sitting in airports, coffee shops, on the beach, in their hotels, typing away - getting things done, staying in touch, downloading, meeting people.
And then, coming back to the cell phone I dug out of the stone ages, there came the smart phone - which allows you to do everything discussed above, bringing you right at the edge of the action, 24/7. I sat in a room once and everyone was inflicted with BB-itis. Symptoms - dropped head, eyes locked on Blackberry screen, oblivious to life around them, fingers tapping away at keyboard frantically.
It's a serious ailment which has afflicted many people around the world, in addition to iPhoneitis and other smart phone related afflictions.
But it's immediacy on the go. You can now send an email or an IM and get a response faster than the time it takes to get a cup of coffee at your favourite Rituals or Starbucks as the case may be.
And to think, I loved that phone so much that I did not want to let it go. And to think, everything mentioned here is just the tip of the evolution iceberg as far as communication is concerned. If I had to talk about everything out there, my head would hurt. There is so much happening out there that soon some of these things may be as dead and archaic as that old Nokia, with its analog service. It's exciting find out though.
Okay, I know you laughed. I remember when I bought that cell phone back in 2002. That phone was the hottest thing on the market and there were ooh's and aah's when I bought my new Nokia. Now, it's nothing more than a paper weight. I never got rid of it because it was my first phone and then, my kids could probably laugh about it one day, the way we laugh about 8-tracks with our parents. I can hear it now.
- So ummm...what did this phone do? Could you take photos with it? Can you check email on it? What about blogging...can I send a blog post with it? What does it do?
- Ummm..you could call a friend and get calls and...oh...you could send text messages!
- That's all??
But it goes to show how communication has changed and keeps changing. 2002 was not that far off was it? But then, think even further back to when we used to put pen to paper and write letters. In high school, pen pals were all the rage, You paid like $5 and got 4 pen pals, and you would spend your weekend writing letters in your best penmanship to teenagers like yourself in Africa or Europe or North America. You would wait weeks for a reply and would light up like a bulb when you got home and there was your letter, waiting to be opened.
Then came email and the death of personalised stationery and the birth of the term "slow mail" which now described that fun activity of writing out those epistles to friends in foreign countries. But emails allowed not only faster delivery of your messages, but also allowed you to send photos and helped to foster these relationships on a deeper level since you could communicate more often, without any expense.
Chat came and the email was not the popular kid anymore. With instant messaging services like MSN and Yahoo, who needed to sit and write an email and wait for the person to check it and hopefully respond immediately? Now you could see if the person was online and talk in real time with him or her. With chat later came video chat and stuff like Skype, which signalled the near death of the telephone in our homes. I cannot tell you the last time I got a phone call on my landline.
Facebook became the ultimate relationship builder and social hot spot. So I had one of those slow mail penpals and after a while, we just sort of stopped writing and lost touch. After almost 20 years, guess where we reconnected? You guessed it. Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with dozens of people I just simply lost touch with and now it is where we all keep in touch, some simply want to macco and some like to be macco'ed (don't deny it!), share their opinions on stuff and meet new people.
And worse than me picking up the phone in my home, is me picking up a newspaper. Besides getting that yucky press ink all over my hands, the www world has made getting the news so much more convenient and accessible. And with newspapers going electronic and also with media gurus and just people with opinions on the news creating blogs and forums, feedback and discussion on current events is more prevalent and there is no longer that one-sidedness which news was all about in the past. Sure you had letters to the editor, but you had to hope your letter got chosen and then that in itself is limited cause noone can comment on your letter in real time, if anyone chooses to at all.
Blogging has brought so many different topics to so many different people. There are blogs about everything - sports, technology, food, fashion, travel (yaay), media, entertainment, sex, dating - you name it, there is a blog out there that hashes out the issues and has readers hashing right back. Isn't it fantastic?
And for the people on the move, who want to process info quickly, who want to not have to scour the cyberverse for details, there is microblogging. Twitter has really exploded over the past several months and Facebook also allows people to just simply answer the question "what am I doing now?" as well as share links to articles, news, videos, podcasts etc.
Businesses have come a long way too. The way we communicate in business has evolved as well. I always smirk when I have to print a memo in this day and age, but paper trails are still important, though I think cyber trails can work as well. Some businesses have harnessed the power of technology and employees are keeping in touch via email, Office Communicator, intranets, internal social networking platforms similar to the external ones like Facebook and Twitter.
And you were no longer slaves to your pc, but the mobility of communication changed too, with laptops and wireless internet almost anywhere you go so is it any wonder you see people sitting in airports, coffee shops, on the beach, in their hotels, typing away - getting things done, staying in touch, downloading, meeting people.
And then, coming back to the cell phone I dug out of the stone ages, there came the smart phone - which allows you to do everything discussed above, bringing you right at the edge of the action, 24/7. I sat in a room once and everyone was inflicted with BB-itis. Symptoms - dropped head, eyes locked on Blackberry screen, oblivious to life around them, fingers tapping away at keyboard frantically.
But it's immediacy on the go. You can now send an email or an IM and get a response faster than the time it takes to get a cup of coffee at your favourite Rituals or Starbucks as the case may be.
And to think, I loved that phone so much that I did not want to let it go. And to think, everything mentioned here is just the tip of the evolution iceberg as far as communication is concerned. If I had to talk about everything out there, my head would hurt. There is so much happening out there that soon some of these things may be as dead and archaic as that old Nokia, with its analog service. It's exciting find out though.
