Elections and the Internet

Its that time of year, where social media is riddled with ads about elections, and candidates telling you why they are the right person to vote for and why the others are such terrible candidates. In today's world, politics has fused themselves into the social media world by advertising everywhere they can on the internet. Every election whether it be for governor, mid-terms, or presidential, social media, commercials on TV are littered with electoral candidates' commercials pushing their view on political views.

I think this makes people, or people like me annoyed of always seeing these ads since most of it is slander ads towards their running mates and makes these people look bad. These ads are made to make people think a certain way and takes away some peoples views or opinions because they are thinking the way some of these candidates want them to think.

Technology presentation

This past week, I presented a piece of technology in my BIS315 class that not many people would know. For my presentation, i chose to present on a skate sharpening machine called the Sparx machine. This machine is an automated and portable skate sharpening device that can be used anywhere unlike most skate sharpening machines. Usually if someone wanted their skates sharpened, they would need to go to a hockey pro shop or an ice rink. With the Sparx machine you can sharpen your skates at home on your own time. The sparx machine brought unmatched accuracy and helps hockey players and people who skate often save money on skate sharpening's.

Although not many people might find it for good use, i thought it was a great piece of technology to present since it has become so useful for my ice hockey team, and I'm sure it has been very useful for others like me. It is a great investment and i think many hockey players would love to have one.

Individual Tech Presentation

In my BIS315 class we were assigned to present a piece of technology that you use that others may not know about. Although my piece of technology may not be used by many in my class, i thought it be great to present since it's so helpful for hockey players like me. I chose a machine called the Sparx machine. This piece of technology is a skate sharpening device that can be transported and used anywhere. It is great for hockey players because not everyone has access to getting their skate sharpened at any time. Also, this machine can be used in Lockeroom's before and during games if your skates every become dull or lose an edge. It truly is a game saver for hockey players and i think it's a great and unique piece of technology.

The Social Organization

After reading these past couple of chapters, I was able to intake a lot of knowledge about the importance of having social media presence in today's world, especially if you are the head of a business or organization. By being active on social media, you can share your own ideas and opinions and talk to others who might have different ideas. One of the chapters was based on community collaboration. I think collaborating with a community is very important when trying to gain a social media presence. Staying active with your community also helps you share your ideas and gain others' ideas when you are trying to create a vision for your organization. I also thought it was very important that you must stay organized. Staying organized with various social media applications. Creating a content calendar also helps so you know what content you're posting each day of the week. These chapters really helped me when it came to working on my client project and i can't wait to learn more

Hootsuite 4/client project step 4

This past week i started working on step 4 in my client project. I was able to communicate some more ideas about helping out my client. I talked about how it may be a good idea to start connecting with other organizations that are similar. In this case, connect with other team's social media accounts. Connecting with other teams or team organization can help share and spread ideas so both can grow on social media. I also suggested trying out some way to do ads on Instagram or boosts. Boosting or advertising your posts will help spread the posts out to people who may not follow them on social media but have similar interests. This can also help followers be more engaged with your posts if it's boosted to the top of a followers Instagram page. I talked about the future of the organization and what they could do to stay with trends on social media and to make sure to create content and post consistently.

Hootsuite module 3

This past couple of weeks I've been working on module 3 on Hootsuite for my client project. I'm working with the CMU d2 hockey team and trying to help promote and expand the organization. On Hootsuite I went through the module a few times because there was a lot of information to go over. Right now, I'm helping the social media team create new content for the Tik Tok that will help expand to the target audience. I've also talked about new ideas for the Instagram like having questionnaires for the team and possibly including prizes. It's been really interesting and fun applying the applications I've learned so far to an actual organization.

"The Legal side of Big Data"

After watching a lecture video called "The Legal side of Big Data", i learned a great deal about how serious it is when big data is hacked, or information is put out on the internet. It's important that businesses should be careful when using big data, since it is private information that when it's in the wrong hands can cause trouble. Companies keep big data on customers that are supposed to be locked and kept private. But in the past decade, there have been numerous companies that have been hacked and customers/clients of these companies have had their information stolen or credit cards and store credit card information stolen. For example, in 2013 Target credit cards were hacked where 740 million data records were exposed costing the company millions. These companies need to find a solution to these hacks and stop reacting in the wrong way.

Consumers need to be very aware that when they shop at certain corporations and businesses, they give out information without even knowing it and it will be sold to other companies that may use it for their own benefits. Especially if a customer may have a store credit card of some sort, they are releasing information to the company. People need to be careful because we've learned that big companies like Home Depot and Target cannot keep this information safe like we all thought.

I feel as if there really can't be any balance with the use of big data. It's almost like gambling, as a consumer you're gambling with your own information when giving it out to these companies. It is either safe and kept private like we all think it is, or it is being sold to the highest bidder on the black market. Many companies need to find a solution to keeping and storing big data safely. Although, like I said before I don't know if that is necessarily possible. Maybe one day this problem will be resolved, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

Ted Bundy Tapes, Prehistoric internet

This week I watched the documentary on Ted Bundy, Called the Ted Bundy tapes. One thing I always thought about while watching this crime documentary was that the technology was so far behind to what we know today. Police arrested and lost Ted Bundy while he was in custody numerous times throughout the show, at one point he escaped custody and fled all the way to Tallahassee, Florida. It took the authorities a long time to find him because they were limited of the technology back then. I believe that if the internet and social media existed back then, and the technology was more advanced serial killers like Bundy would have been caught quicker and might've been stopped from murdering anyone all together. With the phones and devices we have now, it's harder to lose the location of someone. I'm sure the location services on cellphones would've been a huge help in finding the victims and even the criminal (Ted Bundy) who performed these heinous crimes. Also, social media could've been a big help as well, if someone performed murders like these today, the news would spread within minutes all over the country/world. These are just some examples of how social media and the rise of technology in today's world can help save people's lives.

Why social media is bad for mental health

Social media and the internet have been a very important aspect in today's world. But the effect of social media on peoples physical and mental health is very concerning. Over the past few years, its been noticeable that social media is taking a toll on everyone's health, especially younger teenagers, and kids. People have become addicted to being on the internet constantly looking at what other people may be doing or what vacation someone is posting about. Many young teenagers will get jealous or depressed because they may see social media influencers who have more stuff like better cars and houses, and unrealistic body goals that some people can't get.

Now although there are benefits from social media like advertising your business or promoting it, there are more negatives than positives. I think that people need to minimize how much they use social media because people are allowed access at a very young age now and its ruining peoples mental and physical health.

Personal Social Media consultant

I looked through my various social media accounts and have noticed there are some things I could change to grow my presence. For example, on Instagram, I feel like I could start by posting more stories or being more active so I can grow my own personal brand. For LinkedIn, i could also do the same. As a brand ambassador for United Wholesale Mortgage, i think i could interact more with others within the company online and post more about what it's like being a brand ambassador for a company so i can spread my personal brand and UWM's brand as well. In the future i hope i can be more active on Social media by interacting more with others professionally and posting more on accounts n LinkedIn and Instagram that will help my brand grow in the professional business world.

Qualities of a Social Media Consultant

After watching a social media consultant lecture, i narrowed down three qualities that social media consultants should have. The first one is probably the most important which is creativity. As a consultant for a company's social media accounts, this person should be able to share strong and innovative ideas that can make the followers happy or more intrigued to see what else this company has to offer. If you can't give great ideas to help a company grow and spread awareness of their company, you are not very much help at all then. A second quality a consultant should have is having the ability to be aware of trends. Having knowledge of the trends going on for social media is good so you can create better ideas for your client and ideas that are related to trends going on with the company and withing the world of social media. A third quality i think a consultant should have is the ability to communicate and have patience. As a social media consultant, the organization you are working with may not like your ideas you've shared, or the ideas given may not take off like you would think they would. Having patience to find the right idea that'll work and help spread awareness of that organization is key because it will take more time for other companies to grow a brand on social media, while others it may be easier to grow their brand or business online. I believe all social media consultants should have these qualities and more so they can help others with their fullest potential.

The internets original sin-Data gathering

After reading "The Internet's Original Sin" and watching Macijej Ceglowski's "The Internet with a Human face" I again am a little terrified of what these companies do. Companies that work through the internet or even google and Bing use different ways to surveillance customers on certain apps and gather data. It's crazy these companies sell data for certain people or groups of people and use it to have ads on their apps that may fit the description of the product they are selling. From the video and the article I read they talked about how people's privacy is sold, and this affects how people act now, just from ads. Regulations or laws need to be made, it doesn't make many people feel safe or at least me to go online. It feels like someone is watching your every move whether it's on snapchat, twitter or anything, and there is nothing we can do about it. Everyone has the right to privacy, even if it's on the internet or certain apps. Even though there are positive things that come from this type of surveillance, I feel the negative outweighs the positives and something needs to change.

Internet Privacy

Since social media became a major presence in the world, it was obvious that companies like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. have used the user's personal data for various uses. But these companies don't do it alone, companies some people have never heard of track people's data and then sell to other companies. They then use this data to make specific ads catered to certain individuals based on their likes, posts and websites they may visit on their phone. I myself have noticed that if can visit a website to shop for clothes let's say. Then eventually I will see ads for that specific clothing company on Instagram or Facebook.

As a user, this tool can be seen as useful, but overall, i believe that it is more harmful then useful, especially in the eyes as a user. People can't stop and prevent these big data companies from tracking them and viewing everything they do on the internet. I think this is dangerous because no one really has any privacy anymore, and you wouldn't want this type of technology and power to fall into the wrong hands. These companies have all the information they could want to market to the right people. As a business this can be and is very helpful. But as a human I see this as invasive, and it takes away people's freedom of privacy.

I watched two videos where two very different people gave their insight and thoughts on cell phones and the effect of social media on people. Louis C.K. and Sherry Turkle are both two very different people but at the same time-shared similar perspectives on the effect social media and phones/electronics have on society today. Both of them explained how us humans are beginning to fear loneliness and that's why people will turn to social media, it gives people happiness to open up their app and are able to see new videos, or posts that their favorite influencer may post on Instagram or Tik Tok. It was very interesting to listen to both videos because i feel like social media is taking over people's lives and negatively affecting how people interact with each other in person, even though I'm a culprit myself of using social media and my phone every day.

I believe while there are benefits to using social media and phones, overall, there are more cons to be noticed. You can go on Instagram and see people posting positive messages or just being themselves. Then, there is other people who are posting hate and mean comments to others just to troll these people or bring them down. It's things like this that are ruining the way people see social media. Not to mention people will do this all day every day because they aren't saying it in person but typing out these messages behind a screen. Social media is taking over the world, and I'm interested in how us humans will either try to change that and evolve as better people or continue this downfall and negativity that is ruining the world today.

This past week, i conducted in a social media experiment for my BIS315 class. For the experiment, I took a day to log how much I used my phone; what apps I used, how many times I checked my phone, etc. After looking at how much I used my phone in a day I decided to have certain breaks where I would put my phone on do not disturb and put it away somewhere I couldn’t see it. I decided that I would do this during times where I knew I did not need my phone whether it be in class, doing homework, at practice or hanging out with my buddies. For example, I would leave my phone in my backpack during class and not have it near me so that I wouldn’t be tempted to check and see if someone was texting me. When I was doing homework, I would put my phone in a separate room, so I didn’t have it in sight or in my reach. I also took a break at night before bed, I would silent my phone when I go to bed and not access it.

 Overall, I tried to make sure I wouldn’t use my phone unless it was necessary. After taking a day to suppress my phone and social media usage, I would say that it did make a strong impact and change my perspective on cell phones and social media. I realized that us humans are almost addicted to our cell phones and using them 24/7. I did feel the need to check my phone a lot during the day and then when I realized I didn’t have it, it would bother me at first that I didn’t have my phone, or I didn’t know where it was. It almost seemed like that if everyone lost their phones for a day, the world would end, and everyone would panic. I think eliminating the amount you use your phone in a day helps you live in the present moment, instead of looking at a tiny screen all the time. I feel like a lot of people could benefit a lot from this experiment and that they should give it a try. People need to stop living on social media and put their phone down and enjoy life without looking at what others are doing or posting a picture, so everyone knows what they are u to.

I enjoyed listening to Clay Shirky's thoughts on how we utilize social media and how it has evolved and changed over the years. Social media is one of the most powerful uses of communication since anyone can type out a message or send a video or picture within seconds. In today's world, social media can change anyone's viewpoints on certain topics. Your told growing up to not believe everything you see online yet social media controls some people's minds and opinions and what they do on a daily basis.

There are definitely positives and negatives to the use of social media. One example is the earthquake in China that Clay discussed and that their citizens were posting their firsthand experiences of the traumatic experience and the government couldn't stop them once it was on the internet and seen by others outside the country. If it wasn't for the internet and social media, who knows if the government would have covered it up or something worse. The internet has great tools that are handy to us today, but the people that run these social media services are trying to control what goes out there on the internet, because some people don't like the world having the freedom to do whatever they want on the internet and speak their mind. But as said before, with all the negative things happening, the rate which people are able to communicate through social media has made the world faster and improved at communicating and spreading messages. I believe communication through the internet and social media will only get better and improve in the coming years.

Hello, this is my first blog post on Tumblr. I am a senior at Central Michigan and hope to be graduating this spring. After this year I'm hoping to be working in a marketing department as a marketing analyst, preferably of a sports company. On Tumblr, I hope to get my own ideas out there and share and connect with others.