Networks and Families Connect

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project report, Barry Wellman, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto, and an co-author of this report, people polled said that they are actually staying more connected using technology, and that new technology did not affect their families' closeness.

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/Networked-Families.aspx

Wellman said that, "the findings were based on a nationally representative poll of 2,252 people, which explored technology use and profiled a group of 482 adults who were married or living together with minor children. Of the 25 percent of the people who were surveyed, they said cellphones and online communication made their families closer and only 11 percent said that the technology had a negative effect."

In my opinion, families like this new technology because they know what each other is doing at all hours of the day, and it probably does not really make a difference if they meet face-to-face because this still is keeping them connected. When families these days are torn apart by the stress of having two parents who work, this type of technology enables them to keep tabs on each other and their children. Parents and children might rush through their days in different directions, but the American family is as tight-knit as in the last generation because of the widespread use of cellphones and the Internet. Most importantly, where technology has changed family life, those polled said it was for the good. For instance, Forty-seven percent of adults said cellphones and the Internet had improved the quality of family communication. Therefore, it makes sense to say that if you’re connected, you’re not isolated.

Washington Report


This study also confirmed that the Internet and mobile phones are not linked to social isolation. In fact, online activities such as e-mail, blogging and frequenting Internet hangouts can even lead to larger, more diverse social networks. The study argued against earlier research in the decade, which suggested that people’s growing embrace of technology has come at the expense of close human connection.

According to the Herald Net:

Although, the 2008 survey of 2,512 adults did find that Americans’ core discussion networks — that group of people you count on being able to confide in, has become smaller in the past two decades of about two people instead of three. They have also become less diverse because they contain fewer friends and more family members. This trend; however, was not linked to the use technology because it is not the Internet’s intention to replace your friends or stop you from going out in public; it's intended to give you a variety of ways to get you more involved and become more social if this is what you are interested in doing.

As I see it, adults of all ages view the Internet as an important tool for maintaining connections with family members, but young people are more likely to go online in order to keep in touch with existing friends and to also make new contacts.

Does Technology Reduce Social Isolation?

It was interesting to read this NY Times article on how technology relates to social networking. It has been shown that people who use digital technologies are more social than ever before, but it also creates anti social behavior because people are spending more time on their computers and cell phones then actually going out in public to meet people. The social isolation that stems from the use of new technology can prevent people from visiting friends and relatives because they may feel that if they text them, this is a connection, but in reality I prefer to see them in person and spend some quality time with them.

Since my dad is elderly and does not use computers or a cell phone, the only way to really stay connected is to invite him over to my house for dinner or the weekend, which is what I do often.

Let's Go Yankees!

Although this may not be related to what I have been posting recently, I had to comment on how sports fans may want to use social networks to keep in touch with all their friends and family who were watching the Yankees win the world series.Was that a great game or what?

As a native New Yorker, and a Yankee fan for many years, I could not wait to get home last night to see the game. I was on a bus to go home to NJ last night and everyone was listening to the game on the bus. The bus driver was listening to a Spanish station, but I still was able to understand what was going on. When the sports announcer said it was only 4 Yanks and 1 Phillies, I just knew the Yankees were going to pull it off. When I got home I could not go to sleep until I knew if they won, and I wanted to Tweet how excited I was when they did win!

Watching how the fans reacted on TV was so exciting, and if anyone is lucky enough to go to the parade, they may be Tweeting to everyone what is going on and what they are experiencing. Social networks are a great way to keep the exciting momentum going for such an exciting event like this. I cannot wait to see people downloading pictures and comments they will make if they were at any of the games or were able to take some photos that they want to share.


People who were not able to get a Yankee cap or shirt are Tweeting to friends who live in New York to purchase these types of items for them.


Congrats to the Yankees!!!!






To watch Alicia Keys and Jay Z perform their new hit "Empire State of Mind" at the new Yankee stadium go to:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiryjGi6wZQ

Q&A on social networks and technology.

Since I wanted to get a different perspective from someone that I feel had a good insight in the area of social networks, technology and knowledge management; I contacted a mentor of mine, who is a librarian at Columbia University. I conducted a Q&A session and we talked about a lot of interesting topics related to social networks and the evolution of technology that I would like to share with you.

Questions:
1) What do you think social networks are best used for?
a. There are a variety of social networks that are used by people, businesses, or for marketing purposes. I cannot really say that one is better than the other because each one is geared toward what the person is interested in and what they expect to get out of using it. For example, Twitter can be used for a political movement or to alert people where the food vendor truck will be today to buy your breakfast or lunch; therefore, people should investigate which site will best meet their needs before joining and contributing content on them.

2) How are social networks used for knowledge management (KM)?
a. Social networks can be used as a KM tool. Businesses can use it to distribute important information to their employees or alert them of an important announcement or events. Using social networks for KM creates a unique network for each organization. For example, if an organization is giving out seasonal and HINI flu vaccinations to their employees, they can post this information on their site to alert when and where they will have to go to receive the vaccination. This way, they will assure that everyone was informed.

3) What are your thoughts on using social network sites (SNS) for business or marketing purposes?
a. You have to be clever about creating a page for a business or marketing. For one thing, if you create a fan page for your business, you want people to relate to it. Also, you need to know who your audience is that your want to target, and make sure you are giving them interesting information because nobody will access it. One thing you have to be aware of is verification issues. Verification of a site or webpage is difficult and it is hard to determine if the person who is posting for a particular business is really an employee authorized to do this. Twitter has a verification award on their site that can be useful to know who posted the content. Some good Twitter feeds are from restaurants letting their neighbourhood residents know when they are offering specials or current events and this is useful to someone who likes to frequent their favorite restaurants. Remember that whoever is creating the content must be creative, but I have noticed that some people are not that good at it.

4) Do you think businesses can use social networking to enhance their growth and profits?
a. Businesses should be aware that many people have short attention spans; therefore, they need to know who is following them and why. They should think about these things before they translate it into a model that they plan to use and this is not an easy task. If a business is in doubt about what angle to take, they should consult an expert to give them some ideas on how to enhance their growth using social networks.

5) What social network sites do you think baby boomers are more attracted to and why?
a. Baby boomers, aged 50-60 years old, had an explosion on Facebook. There may be a variety of reasons why this happened. For exeample, if an incident happens that people can relate to they look for a way to express their feelings. For instance, when Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died recently, many baby boomers who grew up listening to Michael and watching Farrah on TV, may have related the news of their sudden death and started to think about thier own mortality. By joining Facebook, it gives them the opportunity to connect to people who have had the same experiences and thoughts about things like this. Most importantly, many people join to just stay connected to people who are familiar with their lives and their past, or to meet new people. Another factor to their attraction to certain sites can be related to their own temperament and interest.

6) Do you think that older adults find it hard to use this type of technology, and what do you suggest they do to feel comfortable using it?
a. It all depends on the person, not the generation. There are some seniors that are 90 years old that can search the web very easily, and then there are others who do not have any interest in it at all, even if they know what to do. It all depends on the person’s temperament and inclination.

7) Do you think social networking is bad for communication and why?
a. Social networks are great for communicating with people. It is the fastest way to contact someone and give them information or to just chat online. The only bad thing about it is that people slack off on their English grammar when they use these sites or when the text. They become very lazy and sloppy when they send messages, and sometimes you don’t know what they are trying to tell you if they are using too many acronyms.

8) Blogging – Are more people blogging and are adults blogging more, if not, why?
a. More people are blogging these days. Especially if they find a site that interest them and they want to make their comments, which can lead to them creating their own blog. Ultimately, you have to find something that really interest you, but you should keep the blog active by posting at least every two days, or it may become stale and uninteresting to people who have been following your blog. Another concern is finding interesting content for the blog. This takes time because if you are blogging for a business, and it must be for a specific reason or topic, you have to do your research and make sure that what you post is accurate and verifiable.

9) Where do you see social networking going?
a. I guess we will all have to wait and see how it evolves. For instance, Twitter was not that popular when it was first created and now there are millions of people who have joined. In fact, the number of Twitter users grew 200% from 2008 to 2009.

We ended this great conversation and I said to myself “welcome to the world of social networks and technology”! Above all, our children are learning at an early age how to use technology and they will be the ones who will advance the evolution of social networking so let's keep it moving.




Here are some more sites that were suggested for more information on social networking and technology:

Boingboing.net

http://boingboing.net/

Ted.com

http://www.ted.com/

Oreilly

http://oreilly.com/community/

Beware of risk of using social networks for business

Businesses should think about using Social Networking technologies for marketing, public relations, employee relations, or any other initiatives. However, remember that there are some issues to be aware of before starting.
The good thing about Social networks is that it allows people to create communities on the Internet around shared relationships, interests, and activities, but in the business arena, social networks can be used for much more. Many case studies show how companies are able to use social network services to generate new leads, strengthen relationships with customers and employees, and improve their business operations.

Here are some guidelines for avoiding pitfalls when implementing a social networking campaign:

1. Filter information. Actively filter personal or private, confidential or sensitive information about yourself, your company, your employees and partners, and your customers from the information you or your employees post online. Make sure that none of the information you post is covered by any non-disclosure, patent applications, or contractual agreements, which could quickly get you into hot water.

2. Provide value. Post only information relevant to your audience online.
Before any post, ask yourself: Is this information interesting and useful to my audience, or does it only serve us? Your audience will quickly tune you out if you continually post marketing fluff and self-serving promotional ads.

3. Be truthful. Be as forthright and honest as possible. Remember that these types of media are interactive and can quickly get around. You’ll find that unhappy customers and disgruntled employees are not shy in posting negative comments about you and your company for all to see – especially if they find you evasive or less than truthful.

4. Be vigilant. Social networking sites are a target for hackers, and all sorts of online fraudsters. Before joining a social networking site, make sure to read their terms of use and privacy guidelines. How secure is their setup? Are they vetted by third-party security and privacy assurance services? Will they share your information with third parties? Do mechanisms exist to allow you to control who can and cannot see what you share online? Find out and to protect yourself.

5. Provide clear guidelines. Take a cue from IBM and provide clear guidelines on what is and what is not acceptable, and who does and does not speak in behalf of your company. Make sure your employees know the guidelines and follow them. Let them know that whatever they post online can remain there for years to come and could come back to haunt them later on.

Despite the risks of using social networking services, there may be more risks of not using them at all. For the most part, if you don’t shape your own image on the Web, someone will do it for you. Social networks make it quick and easy to set up a basic profile, and that’s the first step toward gaining control of your business’s reputation online.

Social Networking for Adults

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Social Networking for Adults

View more presentations from Steve Butzel.

My Interview with Charlene Li

Tuesday, October 27, 2009. “Mistakes in social media are inevitable – after all, you’re building relationships and what relationship is perfect?” “Focus on the relationships, not the technologies.” - Charlene Li

I was eager to speak to someone with authority on social technology and networks and had the pleasure of interviewing Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, on October 27, 2009 in her Altimeter Group office in California. Ms. Li is a social technology thought leader, and the Altimeter Group founder, which is a strategy consulting firm that provides a pragmatic approach to emerging technologies to companies. The four areas of focus at Altimeter are: leadership and management, customer strategy, enterprise strategy, and innovation and practice.

When I did a Google search for Ms. Li, I found the Altimeter Group and saw a contact number for her. I gave it a shot and called the number and she immediately answered the phone. In introduced myself as a Columbia University Graduate student with in interest in information and digital management and asked her if she had a few minutes to speak to me about social networks, especially about how the older generation is adapting to this type of communication and technology.

Ms. Li said that she has seen a growth in baby boomers and seniors using Facebook to mostly stay connected to family, friends and colleagues. The reason why it was taking them so long to use a social network site was because this generation held back because many friends were not using it themselves; therefore, they did not have anyone to connect to. Eventually, when more people started using it and the word was spread around for them to join, it started to bloom. Another delay in usage was the fact that the older generation did not grow up using this type of technology, and they also worried about their privacy. In fact, the older generation had the notion that they should not share their experiences with anyone because some of their cultures forbid them to do this; therefore, this taboo was difficult to turn around. Next, I asked Ms. Li what she thought about the difficulty older people are having in adapting to new technology. She said that this generation did not grow up using computers and they will not be able to keep up with the younger generation because younger people had a head start using computers, the Web, and all other different technology at an early age.

My next question was what social networks do most of the older generation use. She said that Facebook is being used by the older generation because it has an easier format for them instead of MySpace, which has a lot of customization that they do not really grasp yet.

Also, some older professionals are using LinkedIn because it is geared toward business collaboration. She said that it is the largest professional network with over 50 million members and growing rapidly. What impresses the older generation about this site is that it connects them to their trusted contacts and helps them exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

Regarding how organizations should start to think about using social networks to promote themselves, Ms. Li said that organizations need to focus on relationships and the group that they are targeting to attract them to a particular social network instead of using it for marketing purposes. She felt that people want to use sites like Facebook to only communicate and they are not that interested in using it to market an organization. This trend may change, but in the meantime, people like to just stay connected to their family, friends and colleagues.

The last thing I was interested in was how people and businesses are using Twitter, and Ms. Li said that the growth of businesses using it is starting to take off now. Even if it makes a lot of noise, it is a good way for businesses to send out short messages of information if you need to reach a lot of people quickly. Another challenge is that people sign up and then they drop out because they lost interest in it so we have to see if this loses popularity.

I ended my interview with Charlene Li and thanked her for taking the time to speak to me. She was very gracious and thanked me for calling her. She suggested that I look at her Facebook page to get more information. I plan on posting more on Charlene Li when I look at her page, and if I have more questions, I will contact her again.