The Future Workforce

Is the online workforce the new norm? 

In the reading, Digital Economy: Jobs of the Future by Schumpeter discusses India and China specifically and the jobs their cultures are creating for the online world. More specifically jobs are being created for online gamers, making it possible for people who are interested, to quit their jobs and begin working in the world of online gaming while getting paid. In just 2009 alone, the game World of Warcraft generated 9 billion in gaming-for-hire services. Another company using cyberwork is Amazon, having participants crowdsource for their webpage. Amazon has called this Mechanical Turk, a way to bring those looking for work online and those seeking for work to be completed online together. These tasks for online workers range in skill, from quick and easy to more complex tasks. The term “Microwork” is used to define whether the software to complete the task is provided for the worker or not.

Technology takeover 

In other counties, such as Africa, cell phones and other handheld devices are spreading across regions. These gadgets are taking-off just as they did in developing countries years before. By Africa taking on this new wave of technology, it is creating new paid cyberjobs for the country. The more cyberjobs that are created, the more the need for technology will grow in Africa. The interest in these internet-connected gadgets will boot the demand for mobile access and create an infrastructure of of investment. All of these aspects combined, creates a more connected culture and digital economy.

What Technology Means to Us

OLPC: What Can We Learn?  Namank Shah writes about the One Laptop per Child in A Blurry Vision: Reconsidering the Failure of the One Laptop per Child Initiative. An organization that went from a brilliant idea to a complete failure. The idea was great; give children in developing countries laptops so they can have access to the knowledge they need for only $100 per computer. The closer the project got to shipment, the more problems became evident. Initial buyers began to back out, the price of the laptop rose to $188, and there was minimal IT support to fix technical problems. OLPC project came in under their projected estimates and is now viewed by critics as a failure. One of the defining factors in their decline was their goals and budget. There needed to me a careful analysis of the culture to assess the preexisting problems before changes and adjustments were made. Local traditions and customs need to be taken into account to that the laptops can be appropriate in their context. Trying to force technology on children that don’t see the need for it causes problems. The values of the Western world are not always adaptable everywhere else. Educating our countries youths is always in the top priorities of the United States but this goal does not always translate to other countries. If the OLPC organization had made their project more directly catered to developing countries, instead of trying to force their ways upon people, their results might have been better. Are Cell Phones Running or Ruining Our Lives? Abu Sadat Nurullah’s article The Cell Phone As An Agent of Social Change discusses how important adolescents in the United States consider technology. Specifically, cell phones are considered a tool for communication and entertainment, changing the way we view social interactions and relationships. Cell phones are considered “an agent of social change” and specifically to adolescents, having a cell phone is the norm in the 21st century. For adolescents now, it can be hard to stay in touch with their friends if they do not have a cell phone. The United States as a culture is completely reliant on the use of cell phones because we are always accessible through them.

Understanding Social Media

Social media is a jungle. It is a web-based technology with user-based content. Major companies, including large newspapers have been hiring social media representatives to help expand. This is not a traditional mode of business for these larger and older corporations. But if they don’t keep up, they will fall behind. Social media makes these companies more accessible to the general audience and customers. Now the average person is able to contact, like, share, post and favorite anything they like about their favorite band of dog food.

Advertising has taken on a whole new meaning. Instead of advertising a specific product or company, they now have to market an attraction or a personal experience. They want their consumers to be constantly connected and engaged with the company so they always want more and are constantly looking out for new posts on social media.

The honeycomb of social media  

Kietmann developed a honeycomb theory of social media. It has 7 blocks of functional social media. The author uses that framework to outline identity, conversation, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. Each blocks helps with understanding a specific facet of social media. These are not mutually exclusive and they do not need to all be present at the same time. Identity represents “the extent to which users reveal their identities in a social media setting”. Conversation are how users converse and relate with out another and sharing is the extent to which users spread or distribute their content/receive content. Presence is about how accessible you are via social media and relationships is about how social media users are connecting on different platforms. To identify the general standings of other users, reputation is used and groups is used for creating communities to help grow.                        

The Ethics of PR

In the first reading, Bivins, Ethics, the author discusses our moral actions in regards to the medias moral obligations. The media claims four different group that they are morally responsible for: clients/customers, the organization that they work for, their profession, and the society they are a part of. Educator James Grunig identifies the four linkages that most organizations have in common: those that provide authority, suppliers, people associated with the organization with similar interests, and issue-defined constituents. He provides a chart in the reading to outline and display these four linkages visually. Throughout the rest of the article, these four linkages are referred back to in connection to other ethical or moral issues.

The second article, Digital Ethics by Ess, covers the laws of copy righting and distributing digital media. This reading is meant to me an overview and a summary of the contents from the original article. The first example relates well to the first article, stating that if a friend tells you to listen to a new band that they like, but you do not have the money to afford it, what do you do? This ethical question strongly relates both articles!.