Second life? Try working on your first one

Hey everyone out there, readers,avatars, whomever.
This week I learned about second life which to be brutally honest I find disturbing. It is a completely bizarre concept to me and while it is just an extension of video games it is a great leap from traditional gaming. I understand the appeal of World of Warcraft much more than I do of Second Life. At least in WOW there are objectives and goals which people seek to accomplish. In Second Life it seems that you are basically just living a virtual life. It is frankly a bit sad that people would be living in a virtual world and doing mundane daily tasks such as going shopping, eating as through an online game instead of the real world. This form of socializing can not be healthy for kids or anyone for that matter.

I listened to the NPR segment on "Firms Seek Elusive Real Profit in Virtual Business" and while I find Second Life extremely unattractive it does offer many attractive business opportunites. Second Life has a great deal of users and the ability to market and sell in Second Life has great potential for businesses. Therefore, Second Life is something businesses need to be cognizant of for its business possibilities. Who knows maybe in a few years instead of learning how to make an advertisement on facebook maybe students of Itec 335 will be learning how to create an advertisement in Second Life.

While the business opportunities are plentiful the pure existence of Second Life I find scary. It frightens me that someone would rather spend their time living in this life as opposed to their real one.

Till next time,
JC

InterNetworking

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Im getting ready to enjoy some olympic hockey, hoping USA can pull an upset over Canada.
Now onto this weeks topic. I was introduced to Linkedin last year in my Orginizational Behavior class. We were asked to make a Linkedin account and since than my Linkedin contacts have grown numerously. Also, I have become very familiar with it and begun to learn many of its benefits.
My main interaction with Linkedin comes in the form of an e-mail about once a week from a classmate or colleague requesting as an invitation to connect on linkedin.
While my interaction with Linkedin is limited I do find it has many positive assets. One of the main reasons I use Linkedin is when I am pursuing a job. Therefore, if I make a contact through an internship or another form I can formalize that relationship by following up with a Linkedin invitation. Thus, it keeps me in that persons mind and hopefully will have future benefits.

Linkedin is also a great way to do research. Before interviews, I will take the name of the interviewee and look him up on linkedin. This way I get some background knowledge about the interviewee and can many times view his or her work experience. Having this knowledge can be very beneficial in a job interview as it gives the person being interviewed some knowledge about potential talking points or things they could relate to their interviewer with.

Many of the benefits which I detailed about Linkedin are expanded upon by Guy Kawasaki in his blog post about Ten Ways to Use Linkedin. Therefore, while Linkedin may look like just another social networking site to outside observers once involved many of its benefits are uncovered.
Hope everyone has a good week,
JC

Lack of concentration

Whats up everyone? Hope everyone is enjoying their valentine's day.
-Where has our concentration gone as young people? In the article "Students' new best friend:'MoSoSo," author Michael Bugeja states, "With a society that is increasingly amusing and distracting itself to death, what's at stake is nothing less than the collective conscience."
The mobile phone unfortunately is one of the main culprits. I believe many people don't realize the negative effects many of the smart phones can have. Constantly being glued to your blackberry or iphone, checking your gmail and editing facebook statuses is not good people!! It is dangerous, and it kills our ability to focus. You don't need to immediately respond to emails or friend requests. Take sometime to focus on the real world in front of you not your blackberry screen.
There is nothing that frustrates or irritates me more than when I am having a conversation with someone and they take out their blackberry and hold it up in front of my face. To me its the equivalent of holding a newspaper in my face. Focus on the world around you not the digital one in your pocket.

While I may knock the smartphones I have to say there is a lot that is attractive about them. The ability to have gps or use the internet on the go is very desirable. Marc Cieslak, the author of the BBC article, "Rise and rise of the GPS mobile" makes me further envious of gps enabled phones.

Smartphones clearly have outstanding benefits as many of my peers can attest. However, the fear of losing focus on what is going on around me outweights those potential benefits. Recent generations need to be conscious of our growing lack of conciousness.
See ya next week,
JC

Corporate blogs=boring blogs

Generally, there is nothing I find less interesting than a corporate blog. I find them to be contrived, boring and simply speaking the company line. While I read very few blogs, what I do value in a blog is originality and creativity. I hope the blogger is going to be writing about a subject of particular interest to me and bring something that can't be found in other online or print publications. Most of what I seek I generally believe I can not find in a corporate blog.
In his article 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging Paul Boag makes many suggestions about corporate blogs that he finds to be well done. When browsing some of his selections instead of reversing my opinion about corporate blogs he simply reinforced them. I find them to be dry and lacking any interesting content. Boag says the Nokia Conversation Blog "does a great job of engaging users in conversations, asking for their opinions and starting discussions that generate many comments and gather many opinions" While that may be true, the discussions and questions being posed I have no interest in and have a tough time believing anyone besides electronic-freaks would care to comment either. Who really has the time or desire to sit around and comment on "what is the most feature in a web browsing device?" Maybe I just don't know the right people, but I can't think of anyone who would join that discussion board.
Those are my thoughts for the week. The verdict even if it is done "right" I still find corporate blogs to be dry and boring.