How to Find a job

Whats up everyone? Hope everyone is enjoying march madness.

You ready to learn how to find a job?

Well unfortunately I will not be providing that information because I do not possess that knowledge, but if you know how to find one please feel free to comment with your instructions:) Due to the fact that I am by no means an expert I'll be sure to reference

However, I can tell you what I think I know about finding a job and how social networking can positively influence your search. Lee Miller author of the article Social Networking has its perks, gives the great advice that if you want to find a job "get out from behind the computer!" While this is certainly true that it is necessary to get out and network face-face the computer and social networking can provide many benefits in the job search. Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with people and especially as you have friends graduate from college can see where they have moved onto career wise. Perhaps their place of employment interests you and you can forward them your resume or simply facebook chat them to reconnect. Linkedin is also obviously a great tool as you can join groups and see jobs that are posted.

The concept of The Blog Is the New Resume, is a fascinating and interesting trend which needs to be explored. Certainly a blog is a great way to show employers how you write and file many ideas and thoughts you have. However, if the blog is the new resume I feel I should probably start taking some more time in writing these posts! With that said I'm going to start working on next weeks post.

Till next week,

Jc

computers in the classroom

What's going on? I hope everyone had a good weekend.

When I was in first grade, I remember playing on a an old Mac computer. We would all wait to get on the computer because we all happened to be addicted to Oregon Trail. Today's school children are not playing Oregon trail on an old Mac but are instead communicating with students around the world and have a wealth of knowledge at the fingertips. However, along with the available knowledge they also are faced with a wealth of distractions an inappropriate websites. Kristen Alloway of the New Jersey Star Ledger does a great job of detailing the conflict facing educators and handling technology in the classroom in her article, Students Discovering Online Collaboration.

My personal opinion is that technology and web 2.0 gives students an excellent opportunity if used correctly to collaborate online with others around the world. This information sharing that can be done by a student in class communicating with a student in a classroom in another country can be extremely beneficial in exposing school children to another culture and learning about the world around them. When I was a child and a student we had pen pals, now children can get even better experiences through online collaboration.

Therefore, online collaboration presents many wonderful opportunities but the dangers it presents must also be accounted for. Children can access websites that are inappropriate and instead of using the computers for educational purposes many times they will use them for their non-intended purpose.

Until next week!

JC

Virtual Collaboration

Hey everybody, hope everyone had a good spring break! It's good to be posting again.

Group work is something all of my Kogod peers know far too much about. It seems nearly every class we have in Kogod incorporates group work. Group work while at times can be fun and rewarding at many other times seems to be simply put into syllabi by teachers to take up our time.

Most groups I have been apart of incorporate a mix of face-to-face meetings and online collaboration. Many times we'll get together and split up work and than collaborate it via e-mail or google docs.

Virtual collaboration is a novel concept but I believe it should be used as a complement to in-person group work not to replace it. Nothing can substitute face-to-face meetings where group members get to know each other and can share ideas. By doing everything virtually much is lost. I believe much of the best collaboration is done at face-to-face meetings. I have a lot of trouble imagining working in a group where we never meet in person. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I believe at least meeting in person a few times is the best method and by doing everything virtually much would be lost.

Until next week!

JC

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.