Everyday we use Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). At the office, in school, at home, you name it. We use email, text messages, blogs, videoconferencing, audio conferencing, instant messaging and blackberry messaging. With all of these different mediums, not to mention face-to-face (F2F) communication, are we choosing the best medium for the tasks at hand?
When using a CMC medium, you produce fewer remarks over a period of time, it takes longer to complete a task, less relationships form, but there is greater equality in participation, reduced normative social pressures, and less attitude change.
I wonder how many people could benefit from thinking about the advantages and disadvantages to using certain mediums. I recently started learning about this, and how much of a difference choosing the right medium makes.
Think about all of the new social media tools at our disposal. We have YouTube, Podcasts, Flickr, Blogs, social networking sites, like Facebook, and so much more. All of these advancements are more ways of helping us communicate, but are they distracting us from choosing the correct medium to get the job done in the most efficient way?
What do you think? What mediums work best for you, your company, or your group members?
Sometimes I feel like my mom and I are in sync; we both like to shop for the newest trends and like to eat at the new hot spots in the city. But then there are times where I feel like we are on completely different planets. I have grown up in this information age, with the internet, advanced technologies and social media. My parents did not, and that generational gap has slowly become more apparent.
My father is a dentist who only in the past year implemented a computer into his office and started using it for filing; my mother has three children she likes to be in contact with 24/7, and has only recently begun text messaging. She was forced to get a blackberry when I went abroad; what a nightmare.
Blackberry’s and text messaging, as well as ipods and wii come easily to me; I can turn them on and figure out how they work. My parents on the other hand need step by step instructions, and seem almost afraid of the technology. I can see it in their eyes, the puzzled look, the ‘what in the world is this’ look.
I just started an internship with FaceTime Strategy, which has a big emphasis on social media. I don’t know how to begin to explain this to my parents. I can just imagine the conversation. Me: I just signed up for a ton of social networking sites. Mom: Social network what? Me: Social networking sites. Never mind.
I am not sure, but explaining social media may be a lost cause.
How can I integrate them into social media?
The say not much is certain in life, Death and Taxes is about it. Well I once met a man who didn’t have to pay taxes because he won the Congressional Medal of Honor and as we all see Dick Clark is proving that whole death thing wrong.
The new thing most certainly will be Facebook. We all heard the news that 150 million people are now on Facebook but what about the dead. Yup, they too are now on Facebook. A new intern of mine showed me this “event”.
Its for a funeral. I actually think this is a good idea. How best to reach out to members of a persons community than through a social network. That being said there is just something unsettling knowing that if I were to die tomorrow my friends would set up an event page for me.
I am certain that this page isn’t the first for a funeral but what about weddings, bah mitzvahs, cake tastings, or dog walks? I have been doing a good deal of thinking about how integrated Facebook has become with people and this seems to be it.
I propose a cradle to grave style system where when a child is born parents buy domain names, set up Facebook and twitter accounts, and begin posting photos of life events on flickr.
Too much? I don’t think so.
