**I think they need a pop-up window to let you know that you've merely saved your post and not quite yet published it...**
The chapter on belonging this week was really a fun chapter to read. You never really think about belonging or what it means to "belong" to a group. This chapter made me think back to all the groups I've ever "belonged" to as well as groups I still "belong" to, regardless of my participation in them. One group that I belonged to in real life has become a group that I belong to online through no fault of those of us in the group - we merely live so far away and were only together for a short period of time. This group consists of myself and the eight girls that I lived with while I studied in Italy. Granted, we only lived together for a month while we were studying in Italy and this was in 2006, but I recently received a message on facebook from one of my roommates congratulating me on my engagement and offering her services as a wedding photographer. What's funny about this is the greeting from her message: "Hey Italian roomie!" I have become, and I guess I always was, in the small group of "Italian roomies." I still keep up with some of my other Italian roommates (although not as often as I probably should) but I still comment on their facebook walls and I still "like" their statuses sometimes, but we don't keep in touch that well. Regardless, all nine of us will always be part of the group "Italian roomies."
I share this story with y'all to point out how Dr. Howard's chapter on belonging worked in the real world and is still working in the online world. The first thing Dr. Howard talks about that creates a sense of belonging in a group is initiation rituals (p. 130). This, in Italy, was quite a feat. I was the only one among my roommates that could speak Italian (in fact, I was there to finish up my undergrad foreign language credits....so I was somewhat dangerous with my Italian) and we lived on the non-touristy side of the river in Florence (little-known fact about Florence - once you cross the river, no one speaks English. At all. Period.) That first night together, we decided to make dinner together in our tiny kitchen that holds 1-2 very small people and have a feast and a toast to our time together in Italy. That meant we had to go out in our non-English neighborhood and buy food...from people who don't speak English (or at least pretend not to). This experience (and many like it in the coming days) was our initiation ritual into Italian life (and also made us very good at charades).
The next topic Dr. Howard talks about is stories of origin (p. 131). In our group we discussed what we were doing in Italy (taking classes), why we chose Florence instead of Rome (can anyone say fashion capitol of Italy?), and what we hoped to gain from the experience (which were many varied reasons including the want to learn what it was like to live in a foreign country). We all had fairly consistently similar stories of origin which is possibly why nine girls were able to live in a five bedroom apartment together for a month without killing each other - we were all there for the same reasons and we all experienced it together (which is possibly another initiation ritual).
The next topic of discussion in Dr. Howard's book is leveling up rituals (p. 135). We had none of those, so I'll skip that topic and move on the next which is mythologies (p. 139). This is where the group moves from real life to online life. We all have shared experiences and shared stories from our time in Italy - like the hour and a half to two hours it took us to walk from our apartment to the Palazzo Michelangelo (which, by the way, has the best view of Florence with the worst hike known to man), or the time we all went to the wine tasting in Chianti, or all the times the aforementioned roommate asked us to pose for her around the city for her photography class. Because of these shared stories and shared experiences, we still stay in touch (albeit minimally) through facebook. These mythologies are what we discuss in our online time together - the shared experience of the photographer roommate taking our pictures and later showing us what her pictures look like and how she was able to use Photoshop to create such stunning pictures allows her to offer her services as a wedding photographer because she's photographed me before and I've seen her work. I know what to expect from her as a photographer and she knows what to expect from me as a subject.
The next topic that Dr. Howard discusses is symbols and codes (p. 140). I'm not sure if the rest of the group has the same symbols/codes as I do, but I'm sure we all hold some similar in type. For example, every time I go to Olive Garden, I think back to when we used to go out to eat together in Florence. There was a lovely hole-in-the-wall restaurant down the street that we celebrated one of the roommate's birthday at. The music in the Olive Garden is reminiscent of the music in this quaint, yet sophisticated restaurant. It takes me back every time. Additionally, every time I see a picture or a painting or architecture that looks even remotely Italian, I remember how it felt to explore our city and those around us. Each time something reminds me of Italy, I immediately want to go to facebook and touch base with these girls. I wonder if they're thinking of Italy too. I wonder if they miss it as much as I do. I wonder if they still feel that bond that the group created in our time in Italy.
The final topic that Dr. Howard discusses in his chapter on belonging is protocols, routines, and schemas (141). This made me giggle a little on the inside when I thought about applying it to our group. When we were face-to-face whether it was seeing each other around town or coming back to the apartment after class we would shout "Buongiorno, raggazze!" (Good day, girls!). Now that we're online, its become "Hello Italian roomie!" I'm kind of sad that we've dropped the Italian from our greeting, but we are no longer in Italy and it seems oddly out of place despite using it multiple times every day to greet one another while we were there. But that was in the moment and that was in the country and it was more acceptable. Here, we aren't the same - we're online. It's easier and quicker for us to use the English online because that's what we know (and our computers know it without giving us spelling errors) and it seems more appropriate for how we interact in our new online "group".
Hopefully through this long story of my interactions with the girls I lived with in Italy, I've shown how our group has changed and morphed with our move from living together to online only interactions.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Remuneration in Everyday Life
This week is all about remuneration. Most of the examples of remuneration in this week's readings are about online ventures and the remuneration therein. However, remuneration doesn't just happen online; It can happen anywhere! And it does. I'd like to give a few "everyday" situations that remunerate the user (or for the sake of this post, the actor - and by that I don't mean theatrical actors) before I delve into more appropriate digital remuneration examples.
My first example deals with my job off campus at the Japanese Steakhouse I work at. It may seem very simple and somewhat blasé, but going to a restaurant and working in a restaurant are both examples of when remuneration is necessary. If you are the customer, you will feel remunerated if the waitress is courteous and has everything to you in a timely manner as well as if the chef has prepared your food to your liking (and if you enjoyed the show the chef put on if you are in a restaurant like the one I currently work at). As a waitress you are remunerated if your customers make only reasonable requests of your time and attention as well as if they leave you an appropriate tip. Without the payout (tip) at the end of the day, even if the customers were kind, courteous, and not what we would call "needy," a waitress still needs that monetary remuneration at the end of the night. However, for some waitresses (myself included), the money is not the only remuneration we receive at the end of the night. More often than not the owner and/or manager of the restaurant compares every waitresses tips at the end of the night. If a waitress does consistently well, she will receive praise from her superior(s) and will most likely be given more responsibility with less supervision thus making her want to work harder to continue to be remunerated in this way.
A second example for remuneration outside the digital world is for the animal lovers; If you have ever had a really crummy day and have arrived home to see your beloved family pet who is excited to see you simply because you are there, that is a very rewarding (and remunerating) experience. Even if you did blew up the copy machine at work, ripped your pants on your way out the door to head home, and somehow drove your car into the lake and you had to ride the rest of the way home with the questionable tow-truck man who possibly hasn't bathed in the last decade, your pet doesn't care. You are home. That's all that matters. They love you no matter what and, although possibly a small gesture, just sitting near you and not judging you for anything is an amazing feeling and quite possibly the most natural remuneration known to man (and his best friend).
Now that I've set out some "real world" examples, its time for some "digital world" examples. The first example that comes to mind is the blog that each of us is maintaining this semester. Each of us puts so much into reading the material and trying to make sense of it all in a comprehensive way (some more successful than others) that we all read and respond to. The responses we receive from others on these blogs is such a great feeling! To know that others took the time to read our musings and formulate a response is a wonderful feeling. And this started on the very first blog post. If everyone remembers (or at least looks back to) their first "official" blog post based on the readings, you all will remember that Dr. Howard was one of the first to reply to everyone's blog. Little did we know it then, but Dr. Howard was remunerating us by seeding the discussion. I'm sure we all read Dr. Howard's posts and realized that he brought up great points of discussion that related to our specific blog posts and remunerated us to continue posting to see what everyone else had to say.
The second example of "digital world" remuneration I have is in instant chat utilities like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), which has been around since the days of dial-up (which I guess wasn't so "instant" then), and Skype, which has been around for a few years and is a video-chat utility. These utilities provide *instant* remuneration because you get an instant response to a question, comment, facial expression, whatever. These tools are easy to use and very strait-forward so there's no need to learn how to use an interface, etc. One technique that Dr. Howard talks about that these types of tools use is a fun text editor; Both of these tools provide emoticons and, in some cases, will let you customize your emoticons for free (i.e. you can choose different colors, different styles, sound effects, motion, etc.).
Each of these examples shows either a "real world" remuneration or a "digital world" remuneration as well as either eventual remuneration or instant remuneration. Hopefully based on these examples everyone can see how these blogs are a way of remunerating ourselves (and each other) after a week of reading materials. In fact, I wonder how many of you would post a comment if I told you that I would remunerate each post with a bag of candy for Thursday's class. That's right. Start typing ;)
My first example deals with my job off campus at the Japanese Steakhouse I work at. It may seem very simple and somewhat blasé, but going to a restaurant and working in a restaurant are both examples of when remuneration is necessary. If you are the customer, you will feel remunerated if the waitress is courteous and has everything to you in a timely manner as well as if the chef has prepared your food to your liking (and if you enjoyed the show the chef put on if you are in a restaurant like the one I currently work at). As a waitress you are remunerated if your customers make only reasonable requests of your time and attention as well as if they leave you an appropriate tip. Without the payout (tip) at the end of the day, even if the customers were kind, courteous, and not what we would call "needy," a waitress still needs that monetary remuneration at the end of the night. However, for some waitresses (myself included), the money is not the only remuneration we receive at the end of the night. More often than not the owner and/or manager of the restaurant compares every waitresses tips at the end of the night. If a waitress does consistently well, she will receive praise from her superior(s) and will most likely be given more responsibility with less supervision thus making her want to work harder to continue to be remunerated in this way.
A second example for remuneration outside the digital world is for the animal lovers; If you have ever had a really crummy day and have arrived home to see your beloved family pet who is excited to see you simply because you are there, that is a very rewarding (and remunerating) experience. Even if you did blew up the copy machine at work, ripped your pants on your way out the door to head home, and somehow drove your car into the lake and you had to ride the rest of the way home with the questionable tow-truck man who possibly hasn't bathed in the last decade, your pet doesn't care. You are home. That's all that matters. They love you no matter what and, although possibly a small gesture, just sitting near you and not judging you for anything is an amazing feeling and quite possibly the most natural remuneration known to man (and his best friend).
Now that I've set out some "real world" examples, its time for some "digital world" examples. The first example that comes to mind is the blog that each of us is maintaining this semester. Each of us puts so much into reading the material and trying to make sense of it all in a comprehensive way (some more successful than others) that we all read and respond to. The responses we receive from others on these blogs is such a great feeling! To know that others took the time to read our musings and formulate a response is a wonderful feeling. And this started on the very first blog post. If everyone remembers (or at least looks back to) their first "official" blog post based on the readings, you all will remember that Dr. Howard was one of the first to reply to everyone's blog. Little did we know it then, but Dr. Howard was remunerating us by seeding the discussion. I'm sure we all read Dr. Howard's posts and realized that he brought up great points of discussion that related to our specific blog posts and remunerated us to continue posting to see what everyone else had to say.
The second example of "digital world" remuneration I have is in instant chat utilities like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), which has been around since the days of dial-up (which I guess wasn't so "instant" then), and Skype, which has been around for a few years and is a video-chat utility. These utilities provide *instant* remuneration because you get an instant response to a question, comment, facial expression, whatever. These tools are easy to use and very strait-forward so there's no need to learn how to use an interface, etc. One technique that Dr. Howard talks about that these types of tools use is a fun text editor; Both of these tools provide emoticons and, in some cases, will let you customize your emoticons for free (i.e. you can choose different colors, different styles, sound effects, motion, etc.).
Each of these examples shows either a "real world" remuneration or a "digital world" remuneration as well as either eventual remuneration or instant remuneration. Hopefully based on these examples everyone can see how these blogs are a way of remunerating ourselves (and each other) after a week of reading materials. In fact, I wonder how many of you would post a comment if I told you that I would remunerate each post with a bag of candy for Thursday's class. That's right. Start typing ;)
Monday, September 13, 2010
Social Networking Prophesies?
I title this week's post "Social Networking Prophesies?" (emphasis on the question mark at the end) because on page 206 of Dr. Howard's book, it doesn't seem strange to those of us in this age of Internet lifestyles that these observations by Hiltz and Turoff in 1978 came true. But if we all think back to the early- to mid-90s, when watching paint dry was much quicker than a dial-up modem loading your email, you come to the same realization that I did: I thought email was the only thing the Internet was going to be useful for. Never in my wildest dreams in the 90s did I even think that voice- communication from one computer to another one down the street was possible, yet here it is 2010 and I used my computer to "call" those back home while I was on vacation in Ireland this year! To think that these two researchers in 1978 would come up with a list of things the Internet would be able to do by now is simply astonishing! I can't even begin to guess what's going to happen to the Internet tomorrow, much less in 30 years! I'm sure there were quite a few people in 1978 who thought they were crazy with making such grandiose statements of how the Internet would change society and people's lifestyles. I'll bet even in 1988 there were people who still thought these two researchers were a few crayons short of a box for these observations (read: prophesies). But from 1998 until now, I'm sure those who doubted these two are looking back and saying, "Wow! Those guys were right about this Internet thing!"
Reading further, Dr. Howard discusses the "cost of literacy" (209). I wonder if Hiltz and Turoff thought about the cost of literacy for their predictions. Like the CEO of Twitter, Evan Williams, is quoted as saying that he "never anticipated the many, many uses which would evolve from this simple system" (205). I wonder if Hiltz and Turoff thought that the Internet would aid in reporting social uprisings like what happened in Tehran or natural disasters such as the San Diego wildfire. Could they have predicted that the Internet, along with the list on page 206 of their predictions, would allow ordinary citizens (read: users) to have a voice and a presence in the entire world, but that that voice could cost them whatever freedoms they are allotted? Additionally, could they have foreseen what Dr. Howard calls the "Dilemma of Control vs. Creativity" (215)? Before the Internet, plagiarism and ownership of ideas were more or less cut and dry ideas. Yet, with the Internet, "sampling," which according to Wikipedia is "the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song. The wide spread use of sampling in popular music originated with the birth of hip hop music in New York in the 1970s" (Wikipedia ) seems to be taking a new direction - people are "sampling" others writing and editing it (such as on Wikipedia). The lines between authorship (and thus ownership of ideas) and collaborative writing (i.e. Wikipedia) are becoming blurred. Could Hiltz and Turoff have seen this idea of collective writing and sampling in the authorship of ideas blossom into what is today the norm since a type of collective writing and sampling in music was already in use during the 1970s?
Reading further, Dr. Howard discusses the "cost of literacy" (209). I wonder if Hiltz and Turoff thought about the cost of literacy for their predictions. Like the CEO of Twitter, Evan Williams, is quoted as saying that he "never anticipated the many, many uses which would evolve from this simple system" (205). I wonder if Hiltz and Turoff thought that the Internet would aid in reporting social uprisings like what happened in Tehran or natural disasters such as the San Diego wildfire. Could they have predicted that the Internet, along with the list on page 206 of their predictions, would allow ordinary citizens (read: users) to have a voice and a presence in the entire world, but that that voice could cost them whatever freedoms they are allotted? Additionally, could they have foreseen what Dr. Howard calls the "Dilemma of Control vs. Creativity" (215)? Before the Internet, plagiarism and ownership of ideas were more or less cut and dry ideas. Yet, with the Internet, "sampling," which according to Wikipedia is "the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song. The wide spread use of sampling in popular music originated with the birth of hip hop music in New York in the 1970s" (Wikipedia ) seems to be taking a new direction - people are "sampling" others writing and editing it (such as on Wikipedia). The lines between authorship (and thus ownership of ideas) and collaborative writing (i.e. Wikipedia) are becoming blurred. Could Hiltz and Turoff have seen this idea of collective writing and sampling in the authorship of ideas blossom into what is today the norm since a type of collective writing and sampling in music was already in use during the 1970s?
Monday, September 6, 2010
On Technological Advances
While reading this week, I got stuck on Shirky's repeated examples of technological advances. It got me thinking to back when "smart phones" first came on the market. I cannot tell you how excited I was to get my iPhone two years ago (yes, I'm a late adopter, what can I say -- aside from sorry for throwing in Communication theories on a blog for an English class...). I sat in the parking lot and began texting my friends that I had just purchased my first "smart phone" after years of telling everyone I needed to make phone calls and send quick text messages. I didn't need the internet or the youtube app or any of that other fancy stuff. When I showed my fiancee my new iPhone, I thought he was going to be so impressed with all the cool stuff this new gadget could do (I bought the second version of the iPhone right when it came out). However, as I was showing him my cool new phone, he pulled out his phone from his study abroad in Japan. Let me tell you, they have the coolest gadgets over in Japan! I thought we were a gadget-obsessed country, but we cannot hold a candle to the Japanese when it comes to cool (and useful) gadgets!
In Japan, apparently basic cell phones have the capability of doing all of the things our "new" cell phones can do as well as act as portable televisions. Can you imagine?!?! A TV you can carry around with you in your pocket for that early commute to work or school. And these phones have been out for years. It makes me wonder what "new" technologies we have that would be considered yesterday's news, and what we think will be tomorrow's technology that they already have today.
In the Epilogue, Shirky is discussing how everyone was discussing how nuclear power and space flight were going to be the next big thing in technological advances (299-300). I'm now wondering if those in Japan knew it was going to be birth control and transistors (300). Did such a tech-savvy and tech-advanced country see the rise of social media? Could we possibly learn from this tech-savvy country and grow our technological advances at a faster rate to equate to theirs?
In Japan, apparently basic cell phones have the capability of doing all of the things our "new" cell phones can do as well as act as portable televisions. Can you imagine?!?! A TV you can carry around with you in your pocket for that early commute to work or school. And these phones have been out for years. It makes me wonder what "new" technologies we have that would be considered yesterday's news, and what we think will be tomorrow's technology that they already have today.
In the Epilogue, Shirky is discussing how everyone was discussing how nuclear power and space flight were going to be the next big thing in technological advances (299-300). I'm now wondering if those in Japan knew it was going to be birth control and transistors (300). Did such a tech-savvy and tech-advanced country see the rise of social media? Could we possibly learn from this tech-savvy country and grow our technological advances at a faster rate to equate to theirs?
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