Everthing is Miscellaneous – Take Aways Sunday, Oct 25 2009

Everything is Miscellaneous describes how the internet is redefining categorization.  When creating a scrapbook, you are the one that decides how to order the pictures.  You may decide to categorize the pictures in chronological order, by certain events, who are in the photographs, etc.  The scrapbook will used from time to time on occasion and after a few years, you may rarely look through them.  However, now you can place these photographs online and tag them in certain ways in which other people can view them.  Other people can continue to tag the photograph and people can view your picture all over the world. 

By tagging photos, videos, and articles we can organize our way through the information age any way we see fit.  However, a problem mentioned in the book is figuring out how people tag these pieces of information.  This is important in order for information to be found easily on the internet.  So I am doing a little experiment.  Below is a picture I captured from Flickr.  This random photo had 14 tags attached to it, can you guess what they are?  How would YOU tag this picture?

 

How would you tag this picture?

12 Responses »

 

Here Comes Everybody – Take Aways Wednesday, Oct 14 2009

Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky, is a book about how social media allows for groups to work together to accomplish a goal.  The first example displays an effort to retrieve a cell phone that was left in a cab in New York.  By retrieving photographs and an email address from her stolen cell phone, they could identify and contact who currently had it in their possession.  After many failed attempts to have the cell phone returned to its rightful owner, they turned their story to a personal blog site.  First the story was forwarded around to their friends, but eventually got national attention.  I love this story.  Even though it is just a stolen cell phone, you cannot help but get emotionally attached… mostly because we have all been there.  They were able to get attention from officers, lawyers, online detectives,  and journalists.  Through the collaboration online, people were able to work together to eventually get the phone back.

The book continues to display how groups working together can bring about change.  Whether it be giving up to date information on global events, organization in the workplace, or solving the dilemmas in our world, we are able to pursue these problems faster with our social media tools.

One Response »

 

Born Digital Take Aways Wednesday, Oct 7 2009

Characteristics of a Digital Native

Way they find information:  Instead of using a library card, digital natives are more apt to find information quicker via internet search engines (i.e., google, yahoo).  Advantage, digital natives can search to get information quickly.  Disadvantage, digital natives have to beware of mis-information.

Way they show their identity:  Instead of only defining their identity by the clothes they wear and the crowd they hang out with at school, digital natives can create an identity digitally.  Advantage, digital natives can create (and recreate) their digital identity and explore others that have similar identities.  Disadvantage, digital natives could find a group with a negative impact on their identity.  If I was a parent, I would want to be well aware of forums, blogs, and groups my children are apart of.

Way they socialize:  Not only can digital natives consistently communicate to friends and family, they are able to meet new people with all over the globe.  Advantage, digital natives will have a bigger social network, and therefore a greater social support.  Disadvantage, digital natives could communicate with dangerous people.  Children/teens need to be very aware of the dangers of meeting ‘strangers’ online.

I still remember floppy disks… so I believe I am on the cusp of the digital native generation.  I worry more for the future generation.  Education needs to a big push early on to ensure the safety of these new digital natives.

One Response »

 

RAND Corp. Friday, Oct 2 2009

I have fallen in love with producing tabletop exercises (TTXs) having helped to produce 3 CDC funded panflu exercises this summer involving 6 counties in Indiana.  Since I will be graduating in May with my MPH, I really need to find a job.  So naturally, I searched tabletop exercises in google and found RAND corp.  The more and more I dig into their website, the more impressed I am with their organization!

RAND Mission: The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.

They are a global nonprofit organization that has multiple research arms including homeland security, health, and national security among others.  I am really intrigued with their health branch producing such TTXs as “Designing and Conducting Tabletop Exercises to Assess Public Health Preparedness for Manmade and Naturally Occurring Biological Threats” and “Public Health Preparedness in California: Tabletop Exercises.” 

They also have a program in which you can work full-time while attaining your PhD!  I am always debating whether I want to receive my PhD or work.  This may be the best of both worlds. 

Follow them on twitter: RANDCorporation

2 Responses »