Jim Disrude’s Presentation

            Jim Disrude came into my new communication technology class last week and discussed how to conduct research well. He used his own research work as an example.

            Disrude did a research paper on the effects of Teacher Self-disclosure via Social Networks on Teacher Competence. For this topic he created two Facebooks displaying two different versions of the same professor. One version displayed the professor as an outgoing, fun guy, with a fun profile picture. The other version displayed the professor as a very professional and mature kind of guy, with a profile picture of him in a suite.

            Once Disrude finished creating the Facebooks he showed them to undergraduate students of both sexes and made them decide which professor they would want to have.

Results showed that the majority of students would prefer to have the fun looking professor over the other one, even though both professor were technically the same person with the same credentials listed on Facebook.

Disrude’s expample of his own research is a great display of well-put together work, because he chose a great topic that is relevant and important to him. Disrude, himself is a professor. The way he went about conducting his own research is impressive. His Facebook professor test/survey was perfect for his topic. The audience he targeted for his research results was both specific and fitting.

           Overall after hearing Disrude speak, I now feel more prepared to conduct my research well. He gave great advice and a great example with his own work. 

From Innovation to Revolution

In Malcolm Gladwell’s article, From Innovation to Revolution, he undermines Shirky’s article, The Political Power of Social Media. In Shirky’s article, he highlights how due to the increase of those in the networked population, people have much greater access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced ability to undertake collective action. Shirky shows the example of how texting supposedly gathered massive amounts of people in the Philippines to protest against a government decision.  Gladwell does not support Shirky’s main point, on how social media has revolutionized public organization.

 Gladwell thinks that just because innovations in communication technology happen does not mean that they matter; or, to put it another way, in order for an innovation to make a real difference, it has to solve a problem that was actually a problem in the first place.

            What evidence is there that social revolutions in the pre-Internet era suffered from a lack of cutting-edge communications and organizational tools?

            Did social media solve a problem that actually needed solving? Gladwell sure doesn’t think so.

The Political Power of Social Media

            Clay Shirky’s article, The Political Power of Social Media, discusses how social media tools, like texting, have made the world’s communication landscape much denser. Since the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, the world's networked population has grown from the low millions to the low billions.

 Due to the increase of those in the networked population, people have much greater access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced ability to undertake collective action. Shirky shows this reality through the impeachment trial of Philippine President, Joseph Estrada.

            Thousands of Philippine citizens, angry at their corrupt president, converged on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroads in Manila. They protested because, loyalists in the Philippine Congress voted to set aside key evidence against Estrada. The protest was arranged, in part, by forwarded text messages reading, "Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk." The crowd quickly swelled, and in the next few days, over a million people arrived, choking traffic in downtown Manila. 

            Due to the public’s ability to coordinate a massive group of people, they got what they wanted; the evidence against Estrada was presented to the public.

            It’s crazy how social media has become such a powerful tool to not only network with others, but also to create social change. Because of this fact Governments need to beware of how their actions can be challenged and they need to know how to handle such situations.

            Shirky raises the question: How does the ubiquity of social media affect U.S. interests, and how should U.S. policy respond to it?

            U.S. policy needs to embrace social media and take into account the power it does have. 

Peter Shankman

I recently started following Peter Shankman's blog. He is an  "entrepreneur, author, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about Social Media, PR, marketing, advertising, creativity, and customer service." http://shankman.com/about/  


I highly recommend checking out his site as well as his blog. 


I just read his blog post "Do you know how your customers like to get their information?"

Check it out:http://bit.ly/fcY5K8  

Here is the comment I made on it:

I'm currently doing research for a paper in my new communications technology class. My paper is on the extinction of print media and I found this article intriguing, because it's about how businesses need to get in-touch with their consumers the way they want to reached. In most cases the way consumers want to reached today is not through print media. Your blog reveals how communication technology, such as phone apps, is the way to do so. Even email is growing old.

Your idea of having an app that senses your need of information is fantastic! Thanks for the post. I'm excited to see if the next new thing in communication technology will involve some type of sensing element.

I also wonder if and when email will be replaced with something better...