socio-technical plan

Introduction

Abstract

Without question, we currently stand on the advent of a new type of marketing. It works off of the permission based marketing that was coined in 1999 by Seth Godin. (Godin 1999) However, the technology that has come into usage today is at a minimum, remarkable. This is said with a caveat however, and that caveat will be that the first large company (i.e. Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!) and others who have a heavy interest in data mining will eventually take a good hard look at taking over the industry from its current state of the wild, Wild West, to that of a well-organized machine.

This research intends on analyzing several facets of a business new to social media marketing. First, utilizing Google analytics, we will examine the traffic, “likes”, “followers” unique visitors to the web site or web store that we design, Facebook, Twitter, LinkeIn, Pinterest, Foursquare, MySpace as well as other smaller social media platforms. We will then analyze the actual amount of foot traffic that comes into the physical store, the amount of new referrals to the store and the amount of increased revenue that can be immediately connected to the campaign.

This paper will then research permission marketing email campaigns through companies such as Constant Contact with coupons, events and rewards similar to what Groupon advertises. The research will cover in-depth the results of the permission based marketing campaign.

By adding an online scheduling application to a Facebook page, a business can accept reservations for appointments, at a certain time and with a certain service provider within the business. They then can only reserve that time by placing a major credit card into the site, secured by PayPal. The amount of appointments that are then kept will be compared to the amount of appointments not kept prior to this campaign.

There will be a total of over 100 different analytical observations of various aspects of the success, or failure of the social media marketing campaign. Currently, actual viewers of TV conducted by companies such as the Neilson Rating utilize an extremely cross section of the population to make a decision for the executives at the media companies as to who pays attention to what. Companies such as Google Analytical, Hootsuite, Onlywire and several others can analyze exact measurements of page views, unique visitors, time spent on various pages, postings, tweets, re-tweets, etc. This information will be used in the future to predict the viewer’s options as it is live, real and exact as it is configured by an algorithmic formula that does not take into consideration socio-economical information and other characteristics that can alter the scores. In fact, the analytics can determine not only gender, but ethnicity (if disclosed), age bracket, sexual orientation, education level, income level, etc. The list goes on. No such metrics exist now in media in its current stage.

This paper will take a look at the pieces as they exist now, and as a whole as they will eventually become in the next 5 – 15 years.

Scope

Currently, there seems to be a platform for every type of small business advertising campaign that exists. The problem is, they are extremely small, often do not interact with each other and can be cumbersome in advertising to a consumer as their public relations department (if exists) and their marketing departments are under-skilled and usually have multiple hats to wear within the company. That leaves the consumer or the ad agency to decipher what is right and what is the wrong solution for them. Of course, each company brags that they are the most cutting edge and have the best product.

An example of this is an online scheduling calendar for hair, nail, tanning salons and other companies that can take appointments. Having this solution offers the business owner many reasons. For a cost of $100 - $150 per month, they can put their entire staff on the schedule, which staff member can perform which services, when the services are available, when the service provider is available, how much the service costs and much more. With the calendar, the consumer sees a blank calendar (those appointments that are still open) and can book accordingly their service. They then register with a credit card (run through PayPal) and it holds their appointment. When they show up, they can choose to pay in cash and the hold is released, however if they do not show up the missed appointment is charged. I have seen shops whereas they report that more than 90% of the appointments made are kept. They will also receive an email and an SMS message reminding them of the appointment, as will the shop owner and the service provider. In addition, should they wish to maintain a standing appointment, they can do so at this point. For $150 per month, the lack of a receptionist taking phone orders is a mere drop in the bucket to the increased revenue, but equally important the talk of the town that the shop owner receives.

            This is one of dozens of innovative concepts that are being sold, that interacts and can be placed on a blog, website, and Facebook or Twitter page with no programming skills whatsoever. In the interest of time, this paper will not discuss all of the available components that currently exist nor those that are in development.

Purpose and Goals

The small to medium business runs this country. The medium to large corporations are well capitalized and therefore deal primarily with enterprise solutions. The question will become, will it be smarter to take the risk of selling a very large enterprise solution vs. that of selling hundreds of thousands of affordable smaller scaled solutions.

            In reverse, large business runs small business. I remember in the early 1980’s when the largest IBM plant in the world located in Poughkeepsie, NY decided to outsource, downsize and cut its workforce by up to 40%. This didn’t just affect the IBM worker however. Homes were placed for sale in droves, dramatically creating a glut of supply on the market and causing property values to plummet. With a dropped property value comes a dropped tax assessment and therefore government and school districts were forced to cut back. The Ford and GM dealerships across the street went from selling 100 new cars per month, to less than 10. Without selling cars, the dealer had no need for many of their employees. Those employees who stayed home no longer patronized the local hot dog wagon, and he in turn had to close his shop.

            The relationship of large and small business is staggering. In the case of social media, it is as easier, softer way to disseminate information at a dramatically reduced cost. Not only is it cheaper, it is incredibly faster. A bomb blowing up in Beirut may take CNN up to 2 hours to get it on air, while a normal person with a smartphone can post it on YouTube within seconds. From their blogs are created and the world is now instantly connected to the bomb blowing up in Beirut.

            Businesses will run cheaper because of social media; they will have a quicker and cheaper access to supply chain demand, getting their products quicker and with less effort. Those times of having to go to a specialty store for your business needs are now left to the Internet. The cost of that online store is cheaper, they have fewer employees, no rent or utilities and now only have to worry about fulfillment. If they can’t handle it, as was the case of Toys R Us in the Christmas holiday season of the early 90’s, they found out that being a good toy retailer did not make them a good toy online retailer. That is why to this day, Toys R Us has their entire fulfillment outsourced to Amazon, who specializes in this type of thing. If not for the immediate decision to move to Amazon, Toys R Us was effectively done online. Sure, they took a huge black eye as their fulfillment was able to get their products delivered by late January for the previous December holiday, but they recovered quickly with the help of Amazon. This philosophy was discussed in depth by Harridge-March (Harridge-March 2008) who discussed in detail relationship marketing as well as direct marketing.

Supporting Forces: As bandwidth becomes cheaper and faster, so does the tools and applications that run upon them. Chain supply demand will become a totally automated process and human intervention will be totally removed from this element, further reducing costs.

Educational: The American public is still not versed in their knowledge of social media marketing compared to what they will be in 15 years from now on. And only those with extra time and a bit of the savviest players will take advantage of it. “Effective social media measurement should start by turning the traditional ROI approach on its head. That is, instead of emphasizing their own marketing investments and calculating the returns in terms of customer response, managers should begin by considering consumer motivations to use social media and then measure the social media investments customers make as they engage with the marketers brands.” (Hoffman and Fodor 2010)

Technological: Social Media in its current state would be the equivalent of me to buy a car from Ford; I would have to buy the seats from their manufacturer, the engine from theirs, the transmission from them and so on. That would be a preposterous idea because I can walk into a Ford dealer and they did that already for me. The future of this industry is walking into a dealer and being able to turn a key and start the engine.

Economical: To obtain the proper solutions, multiple vendors would be involved and therefore a higher cost. Under the proposed solution, we have a one stop shop as opposed to the a la carte shop that exists. This is why the data miners will take over this industry in 15 years and make social media marketing a household name. Everyone will expect that they can do their food shopping, their auto shopping, turn on their home alarm remotely (already exists) as well as perform every other task that requires face to face confrontations and/ or a drive in a car to perform meaningless but necessary tasks.

            Big business is already realizing this. I would love to watch my favorite key note speaker give a lecture on my favorite topic – albeit in the privacy of my own home. WHY do I need to fly somewhere and spend the money on food, airline, hotel and take the time and aggravation to travel when the entire 90 minute presentation can be done while I sit in my favorite recliner, in my pajamas eating a bowl of popcorn?

Societal: Society has just begun to accept social media as a toy with only some seeing its benefits of a business model. This will change as education of the subject and business schools teach the different marketing techniques that just didn’t exist even 5 years ago.

            The Florida Virtual High School currently has over 100,000 students enrolled. It is state mandated that any student have the option of going to a virtual school or a brick and mortar school. (Marley 2012)If they should choose the virtual school, they still can play in the band, on the football team; go to dances, all of the social aspects of going to school. Therefore, when it becomes time for higher education, which is going to be ahead of the STEM curve globally when they opt into virtual higher education?

Global: What happens in the U.S. will without doubt happen globally, it is just a matter of time. There will be a push and shove of whose stock prices outperform others, but this will be done so in a manner that will only give benefit to the consumer. Think of the student in Ethiopia who has no access to higher education, but AT&T, Verizon and European wireless carriers are building 4G towers as fast as they can. Is it possible that one day that we will sit in a virtual classroom with a student in Ethiopia, in Argentina and in Utah? There is little doubt that the onset of all social media will be global and shared as Internet bandwidth becomes cheaper and in many countries, offered as a free service of the government (which is should be).

Challenging Forces (risk)

Economical: The concept of social media marketing may never gain ground due to its relatively high cost now, therefore being unattractive to the bigger data mining companies.

            However, the economic risk will without question be undertaken as our giant corporate partners have many R&D dollars to spare.

Societal: Society may reject the concept of doing business a new way and want to do business the way their grandfathers did it years ago. Although this is possible, I am also going to reject this potential as the 16 year olds of today will be the 30 something’s of tomorrow, and THEY will dictate how business is run.

Methodology (approach)

How will we approach it? – On a long learning curve that will prove to be equally exciting as it is harrowing. I believe that many of us will jump in head first and learn to swim while we are in the water for the first time. From our mistakes, we will create our futures and perfect the industry.

Model – I will use my current model that I have already in place in my licensed corporation. I will grow it, adding new concepts daily, making changes on the fly and staying ahead of the curve.

Analytical Plan – I will utilize the free Google Analytical tools to show several different cross sections of how their business is or is not improving. Unlike how TV ratings are derived, the demographics of social media use will be deep, greatly varied and more accurate.

Anticipated Results – that for the next 5 years, the first people in the pool will be the leaders. After that, the Google’s of the world will snap up our experience and expertise and have we run this on an enterprise level. The larger companies will dominate all of social media, but at a very affordable cost and with good value.

Conclusion – The conclusion is simple. Social (Emerging) Media is here to stay; at least that’s what it states on the Colorado Technical University advertisement for emerging media. It will stretch into every facet of our lives as we know it, changing industries along the way and rendering others useless. We will have new methods of doing business on a small and large scale and we will find that in 20 years ago, that what we now use spreadsheets for and programs such as QuickBooks, we wonder how we did all of those calculations on hand written ledgers. I even remember in the beginning of my Doctoral Journal, one of the professors was in her late 60’s and she said that it took her 7 years to get her PhD. I look at the tools that I have now such as ProQuest and wonder how it didn’t take her 17 years to complete.

References

Godin, S. (1999). Permission marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers, Simon and Schuster.

           

Harridge-March, S. (2008). "Direct marketing and relationships." Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing 2(4): 192-198.

             

Hoffman, D. L. and M. Fodor (2010). "Can You Measure the ROI of Your Social Media Marketing?" MIT Sloan Management Review 52(1): 41-49.

Marley, B. (2012). "The Investigation of Virtual School Communications." TechTrends 56(4): 26-33.

The video that launched a business

Futuristic Prediction

I have already made it clear that I am not much for Futuristing, however the article America in the year 2020 (Kiyosaki 2006) is the most lopsided article written that has a scientific, governmental  hole or just a plain bucking of economic policies that history has ever shown.

The article states that “Oil will sell for approximately $250 to $300 per barrel and gasoline prices will be around six dollars a gallon. “ The force that is going to go against this fact is several fold. First of all, the U.S. currently has the largest supply of oil in Alaska, Texas and offshore than any other country in the U.S. No one actually knows how much oil we do or do not have, this is like the crazy times of the oil shortage in the 1970’s when cars had to line up for gasoline on opposite days depending upon the last number of their license plate number. In addition, solar, wind, thermal and several other types of renewable energy are making great strides so that gasoline will not be needed. All of the major governments are putting this into place so that the manufacturers of the vehicles run on alternate sources of energy.

“The electric supply will become spotty and unreliable. Infrastructure problems combined with fuel shortages will cause brownouts and blackouts during periods of peak demand (Especially during the coldest winter nights and the hottest summer days). In some areas scheduled blackouts may become routine.” Whoa! What about nuclear reactors being built at record rates? What about the fact that the average person that lives around a reactor feels safer now than they ever did in the history of reactors?

“The US auto industry will be gone, as will the larger cars we now enjoy. People will be buying smaller fuel-efficient Japanese and Korean cars, the smaller the better. (Detroit simply can't compete with the Japanese when it comes to the manufacture of reliable, fuel-efficient smaller cars.)” Has this guy actually looked at what Ford and GM are putting out these days? Cars that are exceeding 50 miles per gallon, cars with solar energy built into them, cars that are fully charged by electric, not just hybrid?

This guy really should not be taken seriously at all; however there is one prediction that he did make that is already true, “The US will become the single most hated country in the world. US government officials will 

be unable to travel to many places overseas as they will fear arrest for war crimes. American tourists will have to travel very carefully and restrict their wanderings to the few countries where Americans are warmly received.” No one can debate that statement, but then again with NATO, all of those countries actually do WANT to be like the U.S. Even Russia has now joined the WTO.

I guess you give a guy a pen and a piece of paper and anyone is a writer these days.

Reference

Kiyosaki, R. (2006). "America in the year 2020." The Hard Times Gazette.

           

lesson learned

This was the Animoto video that I created that enabled me to being a Realtor base of clients for future developments of an inexpensive way to advertise their listings;

http://youtu.be/ruGmmsOCT7w

Lessons Learned

I definitely found this class to provide me with a very different aspect than that of other classes. First of all, I spent most of the time in the hospital, albeit doing my work. In other classes, where the required reading would require certain chapters as did this one, I read all three books cover to cover. I never knew what Futuring was and now I have a different respect and outlook on it. Although I do see, especially in the models of Wall Street predictors, there is a lot of money to be made, that those making the most money were those investor advisors that were writing the newsletters on the predictions. One of the books even compared the actual S&P 500 over a certain period of time, 108 newsletters and a coin being flipped as to who was on the upside most of the time. The S&P 500 edged out the other two with the coin nudging out the newsletter predictors. Yet still, they still earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in writing the newsletters.

The second most important aspect of what I took from this class was the creation of the Animoto platform. As the owner of a social media marketing group, I found a way to market on a white label basis (paying the $499 annual fee) and offer my services to create videos/ slide shows for weddings, events, but especially within the Realtor circles. Then becoming a re-seller for a nationally known print media company, I was able to promote the Realtors open houses and their accompanying videos through printing invitations given at the open house that included a QR symbol that I put on the self-designed media which in turn allowed the potential client to scan the QR code and then watch on their smartphone or tablet, the Animoto creation. The Realtors think I walk on water.

From this many ideas came out of this class that I now use in real life. I only wish that I was able to get to the SL and Breeze sessions, however without regard to the actual grade, I took away from this class valuable real life information that will make me money far into the future.

Although I will never take into consideration Futuring as a living, I can absolutely see where I believe that the future of social media will go, but I will keep that to myself because with the state of technology, the iPhone5 that was released yesterday (Friday September 21^st) will be old news during the next holiday season. Microsoft will then meet them, Google will buy another Motorola type company and the titans of the industry will keep the technology coming at us so fast and furious that if we WERE to write about our predictions, by the time they were to go to print, they would already be outdated.

Personally, I like not knowing that no one else in my industry knows exactly what is happening, because that gives me a leg up on everything because it makes me believe that I and only I, know what is going to happen next….. and I am not sharing.

project

I went on a limb and took some creation license on this one. First, I have an abstract, but the directions clearly state to describe my plan for socio-technical innovation in a fictional or real company

I assure you all that this is a very real company, I paid for the company to be licensed as an LLC and paid for with my own money all of the modules and apps that are included in this most innovative REAL company.

Abstract
Without question, we currently stand on the advent of a new type of marketing. It works off of the permission based marketing that was coined in 1999 by Seth Godin. However, the technology that has come into usage today is at a minimum, remarkable.
This research intends on analyzing several facets of a business new to social media marketing. First, utilizing Google analytics, we will examine the traffic, “likes”, “followers” unique visitors to the web site or web store that we design, Facebook, Twitter, LinkeIn, Pinterest, Foursquare, MySpace as well as other smaller social media platforms. We will then analyze the actual amount of foot traffic that comes into the store, the amount of new referrals to the store and the amount of increased revenue that can be immediately connected to the campaign.
This paper will then research permission marketing email campaigns with coupons similar to what Groupon advertises. The research will cover in-depth the results of the permission based marketing campaign.
By adding an online scheduling application to a Facebook page, a business can accept reservations for appointments, at a certain time and with a certain service provider within the business. They then can only reserve that time by placing a major credit card into the site, secured by PayPal. The amount of appointments that are then kept will be compared to the amount of appointments not kept prior to this campaign.
There will be a total of over 100 different analytical observations of various aspects of the success, or failure of the social media marketing campaign.


Finally, my project that took well over 80 hours of R&D, creation and innovation can be found at www.omnisocialmediagroup.com

Agora

Depew agora by Christopher Depew - Monday, 13 August 2012, 02:54 PM

My innovation is in the mobile market, specifically tablets penetrating into a new demography. Demography is, indeed, destiny. The tablet is strongly becoming the alternative to every portable device, especially among seniors. Will there be more companies introducing new models at a deeper discount? Probably. Will the demographics expand to include the older crowd, definitely. The world — particularly the countries of the organization for co-operation and development — is growing older. This creates enormous fiscal strains for social welfare states but fantastic market opportunities for device-driven innovators. Mobile phones are too small; their screens too tiny and keyboards too minute. But tablets have emerged as ideal media platforms for those requiring larger fonts and bigger keys. The iPad — originally marketed as the hip & cool media consumption device — has ceased to be a symbol of youth and vitality. It's now how silver haired executives — and 75 year old grandmas — read the news, manage their email and play games with the kids. When this reality is linked to emerging medical research indicating that mental exercise can delay the onset and impact of cognitive diminution, it's clear that there are more reasons for the aged population to have tablets than not. Any company with older customers that doesn't customize apps and offerings for their 60+ users are guilty of brand-destructive age discrimination.(corporate 2012) “The SDP dialogue takes this innovation and clearly defines the situation and steps needs to fully engage the group into an action plan that generates a clear end. In this manner, step-by-step, SDP dialogue progressively clarifies the situation and opens the way to greatly enhanced decision-making and action planning. In addition it: • Authenticates every stakeholder/participant; • Elicits ideas and points of view from all stakeholders;” • Moves toward effective and meaningful consensus; • Elicits and deals with the different priorities of stakeholder/participants; • Equalizes power relations among the stakeholders; and • Goes beyond identifying factors that are important, to specifying those that are most influential in addressing the social system-designing situation” (Christakis 2006) References Christakis, A. (2006). "How people harness their collective wisdom and power." from http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/sdp_process.html. corporate (2012). "OECD." 2012, from http://www.oecd.org/.

Delphi vs. NGT

The primary difference between the Delphi method and the modified nominal group technique is in the anonymity of the Delphi method vs. the group consensus of the modified nominal group technique. Whereas both are listed as iterative processes that seek out methods to solve phenomena, the modified nominal group technique utilizes learner surveys and focus groups.

In the Delphi Method, “It is appropriate for researching complex issues where larger scale quantitative "hard data" fails to unearth richness in tacit knowledge to help the research understand subtle expert opinion. It does not offer the rigor of clinical testing or quantitative analysis, but it provides a scientific methodology that is well suited to issues that require the insights of subject matter experts.”(Thomas 2009)

According to Kuo-Hung, a nominal group technique (NGT) can be used for knowledge transfer and internalization of knowledge in the consensus building process if an information platform was successfully designed and tested. (Kuo-Hung, Shi-Jer et al. 2006)

I believe that my position would be to utilize the Delphi closed collaboration research method for the simple reason that my innovation is simply that, mine. I would seek out the data needed to prove my phenomenon and open collaboration would not be needed.

References

Kuo-Hung, T., L. Shi-Jer, et al. (2006). "Using Online Nominal Group Technique to Implement Knowledge Transfer." Journal of Engineering Education 95(4): 335-345.

Thomas, G. (2009). "The Delphi technique: a method for testing complex and multifaceted topics." International Journal of Managing Projects in Business 2(1): 112-130.

Ted

Was the message delivered about mountain bikes? Well, yes and no. It was about creative innovation, specifically every other invention that spawned from the Internet and modern technology. 

Sure, Leadbeater spoke about mountain bikes and how they were created as an industry by the users of bikes. 

He spoke about innovations such as telephony, how people work in organizations to be organized, but more importantly how large corporations reinvent past success.

I believe it was a presentation on common sense. It almost seemed eerily like a Seinfeld episode where it is a show about just existing. 

Therefore, I am strangely empty my comments of this presentation other than it just makes sense. - Chris.

Delphi

The primary difference between the Delphi method and the modified nominal group technique is in the anonymity of the Delphi method vs. the group consensus of the modified nominal group technique. Whereas both are listed as iterative processes that seek out methods to solve phenomena, the modified nominal group technique utilizes learner surveys and focus groups.

In the Delphi Method, “It is appropriate for researching complex issues where larger scale quantitative "hard data" fails to unearth richness in tacit knowledge to help the research understand subtle expert opinion. It does not offer the rigor of clinical testing or quantitative analysis, but it provides a scientific methodology that is well suited to issues that require the insights of subject matter experts.”(Thomas 2009)

According to Kuo-Hung, a nominal group technique (NGT) can be used for knowledge transfer and internalization of knowledge in the consensus building process if an information platform was successfully designed and tested. (Kuo-Hung, Shi-Jer et al. 2006)

I believe that my position would be to utilize the Delphi closed collaboration research method for the simple reason that my innovation is simply that, mine. I would seek out the data needed to prove my phenomenon and open collaboration would not be needed.

References

Kuo-Hung, T., L. Shi-Jer, et al. (2006). "Using Online Nominal Group Technique to Implement Knowledge Transfer." Journal of Engineering Education 95(4): 335-345.

Thomas, G. (2009). "The Delphi technique: a method for testing complex and multifaceted topics." International Journal of Managing Projects in Business 2(1): 112-130.

Depew innovation

Although it is difficult to think of anything that is not possible today, I imagine plausible would be a better term to utilize the onset of a tablet with a larger harddrive and a qwerty pull out keyboard.

Reading on a smartphone is very difficult for many, especially our elderly.

The tablet is strongly becoming the alternative to every portable device, especially among seniors. Will there be more companies introducing new models at a deeper discount? Probably. Will the demographics expand to include the older crowd, definitely.

Do we need to add more companies? Well, that's like asking that if we have a Facebook account, do we need a Twitter account as well. The answer I give to all of my clients is simple. Yes. No. Well, Maybe. Additional operating systems challenge the current OS. Additional chips challenge the current chips. Do we need a Kindle when we have an iPAD? The newer models will provide the combination of what the above have, but supply will meet demand and with the increased demographics, there will definitely be more demand.

Chris Depew: My animoto video

Chris Depew: My animoto video

My animoto video

I envision where there are no longer chalk boards in classes, they are replaced by smart boards where the teacher has pre-made curriculum or prepares the material themselves, all making it interactive. The smart board interacts with the students tablet, laptop or other device, therefore notes are no longer taken.

The student has no text books. Instead, they were all downloaded at a much cheaper price to the school where they will be uploaded back to a repository for future use of the school, therefore no stolen items.

Every device is equipped with GPS and voice and face recognition. After three failed attempts, the device will emmit a paint like substance (like that in banks or in a fire alarm) making it easily trackable to the individual who stole the property. 

All data is access on a cloud. therefore backup is never necesary and data is never lost.

This program begins in Kindergarden and by 5th grade, student scores would far exceed the world averages.

This 30 second clip is a picture of my vision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s-7nde77aQ

Technology's Promise

    In “Technology’s Promise” I read chapter 4, Society Moves Online: The Transforming Power of Information Technology and E-Commerce. I found the forecasts for e-commerce to be of the most interest to me. Within this, I found the topic of biometrics to be the most futuristic, but apparently conceivable. I have seen some companies use fingerprints to unlock certain devices, I have even seen a friend of mine with an extremely large import/ export business from the U.S. to China have the only access to his databases through a fingerprint device that scans that it is him. It has a backup of a face recognition module to assure it is him. He has a twin that is identical to anyone, including their parents, the software however can 100% of the time distinguish between the two. Halal talks about generations of devices that can check hand geometry, the iris (Mission Impossible?), voice and as I state facial features.(Halal 2008) It is likely that all of these will be utilize in conjunction for one entry point for one individual in governmental installations in the near future, greatly reducing the need for military police.

Techcast shows the most likely year for different sectors of e-commerce and where there increase in size will come about. These new markets will spur on the economy and blaze a path for further innovations. (Coroporate 2012)

References

Coroporate (2012). "TechTrak: A Virtual Think Tank Tracking The Technology Revolution." from http://www.techcast.org/TrategicAnalysis2.aspx?FieldID=23.

               

Halal, W. A. (2008). Technology's Promis. Fifth Avenue, NYC, Palgrave MacMillan.

               

These were posts that went to a different blog, cut and paste version here.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2012

The primary difference between the Delphi method and the modified nominal group technique is in the anonymity of the Delphi method vs. the group consensus of the modified nominal group technique. Whereas both are listed as iterative processes that seek out methods to solve phenomena, the modified nominal group technique utilizes learner surveys and focus groups.

In the Delphi Method, “It is appropriate for researching complex issues where larger scale quantitative "hard data" fails to unearth richness in tacit knowledge to help the research understand subtle expert opinion. It does not offer the rigor of clinical testing or quantitative analysis, but it provides a scientific methodology that is well suited to issues that require the insights of subject matter experts.”(Thomas 2009)

According to Kuo-Hung, a nominal group technique (NGT) can be used for knowledge transfer and internalization of knowledge in the consensus building process if an information platform was successfully designed and tested. (Kuo-Hung, Shi-Jer et al. 2006)

I believe that my position would be to utilize the Delphi closed collaboration research method for the simple reason that my innovation is simply that, mine. I would seek out the data needed to prove my phenomenon and open collaboration would not be needed.

References

Kuo-Hung, T., L. Shi-Jer, et al. (2006). "Using Online Nominal Group Technique to Implement Knowledge Transfer." Journal of Engineering Education 95(4): 335-345.

Thomas, G. (2009). "The Delphi technique: a method for testing complex and multifaceted topics." International Journal of Managing Projects in Business 2(1): 112-130.

MONDAY, JULY 23, 2012

A story about nothing... maybe

Was the message delivered about mountain bikes? Well, yes and no. It was about creative innovation, specifically every other invention that spawned from the Internet and modern technology.

Sure, Leadbeater spoke about mountain bikes and how they were created as an industry by the users of bikes.

He spoke about innovations such as telephony, how people work in organizations to be organized, but more importantly how large corporations reinvent past success.

I believe it was a presentation on common sense. It almost seemed eerily like a Seinfeld episode where it is a show about just existing.

Therefore, I am strangely empty my comments of this presentation other than it just makes sense. - Chris.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2012

Well, we have seen many good things come out of social media and we have discussed how we have to endure the bad along with the good.

The recent news of the parent, upset with his son's iPod being confiscated, is an extremely disturbing story (link included at end of post). In reality, what was this guys defense strategy in court? I am not going to state that he lacked motivation, but the punishment should always fit the crime. Due to his poor judgement and acting out in this extremely malicious manner, this guy is looking at serious jail time. Forget about the civil suit that this principal is going to have, no matter if this parent is able to pay it or not, he will walk around life with a default judgement, having to operate under the radar in every job opportunity that he potentially may have in his future life.

Of course as you read this article, you probably don't care much about the offenders job outlook, nor do I.

When I read about how FM magazines blog (in Clay Sharky's book "Here Comes Everybody"), I thought it difficult to imagine how young girls could actually post methods to remain anorexic and offer bulimia tips. This is much more than self mutilation. This incident potentially could have caused an innocent man (if his sons iPad was confiscated or not), to have his good name dragged through the mud. This didn't just include the mans reputation as a principal, it also included his wife and family. There is a saying in the courts, "once you ring the bell, you can't un-ring it."

Well, at least justice was served in this case and the now two time felon is off to sit and think about his own life.

Read about this article at http://www.newkerala.com/news/newsplus/worldnews-27368.html#.T8Xy77BYvSg

NYC proposes ban on sale of oversized sodas - WSET.com - ABC13

NYC proposes ban on sale of oversized sodas - WSET.com - ABC13

Yet another example of social media in government that is going viral as we speak. The proposal - expected to be announced formally on Thursday in a City Hall briefing - would take 20-ounce soda bottles off the shelves of the city's delis and eliminate super-sized sugary soft drinks from fast-food menus. It is the latest health effort by the administration to spark accusations that the city's officials are overstepping into matters that should be left in the hands of individual consumers.

When something like this happens in government, look at the social media that the particular agency uses. In this case check Twitter @NYCmayorsoffice and look at all the remarks. They range from, Bloomberg is actually nuts to should I wipe standing up or sitting down. 

Don't get me wrong, Michael Bloomberg will probably go down as the greatest Mayor in the City of New York's history. After all, the man is in his third term and he waived his salary to be the mayor (not withstanding that his billion dollar fortune was made in NYC). However, this is a classic example of how social media can take a dumb proposal (in my opinion) and get immediate reaction. This too however, is part of our basic civil liberties to speak out and be heard against or for our elected officials. It just is a lot easier in 2012 then it ever was.

Top 14 Government Social Media Initiatives -- InformationWeek

Top 14 Government Social Media Initiatives -- InformationWeek

Well, we have seen many good things come out of social media and we have discussed how we have to endure the bad along with the good.

The recent news of the parent, upset with his son's iPod being confiscated, is an extremely disturbing story (link included at end of post). In reality, what was this guys defense strategy in court? I am not going to state that he lacked motivation, but the punishment should always fit the crime. Due to his poor judgement and acting out in this extremely malicious manner, this guy is looking at serious jail time. Forget about the civil suit that this principal is going to have, no matter if this parent is able to pay it or not, he will walk around life with a default judgement, having to operate under the radar in every job opportunity that he potentially may have in his future life.

Of course as you read this article, you probably don't care much about the offenders job outlook, nor do I.

When I read about how FM magazines blog (in Clay Sharky's book "Here Comes Everybody"), I thought it difficult to imagine how young girls could actually post methods to remain anorexic and offer bulimia tips. This is much more than self mutilation. This incident potentially could have caused an innocent man (if his sons iPad was confiscated or not), to have his good name dragged through the mud. This didn't just include the mans reputation as a principal, it also included his wife and family. There is a saying in the courts, "once you ring the bell, you can't un-ring it."

Well, at least justice was served in this case and the now two time felon is off to sit and think about his own life.

Read about this article at http://www.newkerala.com/news/newsplus/worldnews-27368.html#.T8Xy77BYvSg

another two cents

Just read a great article in Wired Magazine titled #Crowd Control. (Wasik 2012) It is about how social media fuels social unrest. It gives a timeline of the unrest that social media has caused in 2011. It covers how some 20,000 people gather for a “day of rage,” in Yemen to Athens Greece where up to 100,000 revolt against pay and pension cuts to how in Boston where a kid on Facebook invited and had hundreds of kids show up at a late-night beach party; forcing for a SWAT team to be called in.

The article lists 26 incidents that gathered people together throughout the world, for some cause good or bad, all who got the message from a social network or a SMS or email transmission.

I personally identify with the opening statement, “Why pack into Target when Amazon can speed the essentials of life to your door? Why approach strangers at parties or bars when dating sites like OKCupid … can more efficiently shuttle potential mates into your bed? Why sit in a cinema when you can stream? Why cram into arena seats when you can pay per view? We declare the obsolescence of ‘bricks and mortar,’ but let’s be honest: What we usually want to avoid is flesh and blood…”

I do not think I could have said it any better than that and that is exactly how I feel. Don’t get me wrong, I am the first one to want to have dinner and drinks with friends, but only with those friends that I have already met. I suppose I have enough friends already and really do not care who I meet at the supermarket. I have a 50” flat screen with surround sound, why would I go to the movies just to pay $14 for popcorn and a coke, let alone the price of the ticket when I can have Netflix stream directly to me. It saves me the hassle of walking on the sticky theater floor, sitting next to the people that do not stop talking and even better, when I want another Coca-Cola, I can pause, go to my frig and get one that cost me .42 cents at Costco.com.

Did the convenience of social networking cause me to have societal anxiety that I do not need to be around them? I doubt it is the cause, but it certainly showed me that there is a better way to buy everything from Mother’s Day presents to computers (as I type on my new Dell Alienware Aurora X79 with Dual Layer Blue-ray reader, dual 23” wide screen monitors and 2 TB RAID hard drive that I custom built online from Dell) to products from Walmart.com (even though Walmart is only 5 minutes away).

One of the best things is when I find a vendor out of state that offers free shipping and no sales tax! Maybe it’s just laziness, because I KNOW that Target would have a problem with me if I went in their store and shopped in my pajamas. My two cents again. – Chris.

Wasik, B. (2012). #Crowd Control. Wired. U.S.A., Conde' Nast Media Group. January 2012.