#InCaseYouMissedIt: #SeenOnAWallNearYou – A #Comment on #Privacy – and those Apps’s T.O.S’s

@ NP-B

Is this about the privacy thing?

[WRY CHUCKLE]

Again… want privacy? Step away from the Keyboard. (SM)

[SIGHS]

… and no, I don’t use any of these apps; I use those who are a tad bit more ‘creative’ – yet, I’m pretty sure, if I took the time to read the T.O.S., it’s all pretty much a bunch of legalese saying “you opted in, you’re ours” – which is what I gather from above.

The price of Freeware, perhaps? I’m glad to pay for it; it’s quid-pro-quo: I get a free app, they get to know about me – or at least what I’ve decided to post it’s ‘me’ (meaning, we still control the conversation, Facebook’s pestering for ‘additional profile information’ notwithstanding)

… now… would there ever be real ‘privacy’ on the Web?

Maybe if you’re a real large organization, whose resources – and compliance factors – allow it and require it? a shred of it; yet again, it’s privacy TILTED for the sake of the organization’s goals and needs  – NEVER the users.

So what do I do?

“write as though anything online may end up on the front page of The New York Times” (G.E. HR Orientation Video, 2005)

Otherwise?

Keep your noses clean – and read up what Nancy posts!

[CHUCKLES]

#Justsayin!

#MMS: Market & Audience Rationales: “Behind The Scenes With Newspaper Journalists”

Behind The Scene With Newspaper Journalists

(Posted on Facebook by Spero Canton on Friday, October 23, 2009 at 10:16am)

This is a synopsis of a 66 page report which can be found at: http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/research/lifebeyondprint.asp

According to a new report: “Life beyond print: Newspaper journalists’ digital appetite” by the Media Management Center, Northwestern University, almost half of today’s newspaper journalists think their newsroom’s transition from print to digital is moving too slowly, as they have no trouble envisioning a career where news is delivered primarily online and to mobile devices instead of in print.
MMC executive director Michael P. Smith, says “For several years we have heard that it is the journalists’ resistance to change that was holding newspapers back… this study shows that they are ready, and some are even impatient, for change.”
Now it appears that America’s journalists want a quicker transformation from print to digital delivery of the news, a study of almost 3,800 people in a cross-section of newspaper newsrooms shows. Many of these journalists are heavily engaged in digital activities in their personal lives and would like to devote more effort to digital products at work. But most of their time in the newsroom is still spent on print responsibilities. Only 20% of the workforce like things the way they are or yearn for the good old days.
Life Beyond Print, a study by Vickey Williams, Stacy Lynch and Bob LeBailly, assembles profiles of six types of journalists inhabiting the typical newspaper newsroom in 2009. They range from the “Digitals” (12% of the workforce) who spend a majority of their efforts online today, to the “Turn Back the Clock” contingent (6%), who long for the day when print was king.
Fully half of newsroom workers wish to do “Moderately More” online, arriving at something closer to an equal split with their print efforts, requiring a doubling of the effort they spend today. Those in the “Major Shift” profile (11%) would devote five times their current effort to online if given their druthers.
Newspaper journalists still love their jobs: Despite industry turmoil:
• 77% of journalists are somewhat or very satisfied with their current jobs
• 67% think it somewhat or very likely they will be in the news business two years from now
• 59% think they’ll likely be with their same newspaper
Online desire in the newsroom is not determined by age, years of journalism experience, or proximity to retirement. And youth is not a factor in predicting who in the newsroom wants to move into digital. Rather, the top two predictors of digital appetite are heavy Internet use outside work and having knowledge of online audiences and their preferences.
Previous Readership Institute research has proven the importance of customer knowledge as a first step in building media use, says the report. Real customer focus also includes acting on the results and letting customer needs drive internal decision-making. This study offers a new reason why knowing the audience is important… it helps stimulate a desire to transition to online work. Other predictors of digital appetite include:
• Openness to change at work and adaptability
• Proactive pursuit of the training necessary to learn online skills
• Keeping up with companywide initiatives and industry developments
The study creates these profiles of journalists:
Digitals, about 12% of the workforce, spend most of their time working online. They’re the youngest group, with an average age of 38, and 59% believe the digital transformation is taking too long in their newsroom. They follow big-picture trends, want to quicken the pace These journalists are most likely to be online editors or producers, but about 17% are reporters or writers. Overall, they’re newer to journalism than any other group.
Digitals score highly on factors that relate to adaptability – such as openness to change and work and career proactivity. They’re similar to leaders in this and many other respects. They’re most apt to describe themselves as the first to try something new at work and as having career options.
In a key finding, digital employees label themselves markedly more knowledgeable about consumers of digital, and at the same level of print reader knowledge as their print counterparts. Overall they are much more aware of customer behaviors and needs.
Other findings:
• More than half of the Digitals have undergraduate or graduate degrees in journalism
• 23% have no post-secondary journalism training
• 42% have been in the news business less than 10 years
• 11% have been journalists for more than 30 years
• The average age is the youngest for any segment
Major Shift, at 11%, are the most dissatisfied with their current state, more pessimistic about staying in the business long-term and want the most pronounced change. This group – roughly an equal mix of reporters, mid-level editors, copy editors, designers and videographers, most of whom have been in the business at least 15 years – would like to devote five times their current effort to online. They’re deeply engaged online in their personal lives, but see a disconnect at work. They could help the newsroom adapt faster, but need a sign they should stay in newspapers.
Moderately More, the largest segment at 50% and encompassing many reporters and mid-level editors, want a roughly equal split between online and print work. Half the newsroom believes their newsroom transition has been too slow and would be comfortable seeing their job duties shift moderately more online. But by nearly a 2-1 margin, they believe the newsroom is headed in the right direction.
Some of the Moderately More defining characteristics include:
• Their ideal job would be divided about 50-50 between print and online effort, requiring a doubling of their digital effort today.
• They tend to have been in the business more than 20 years
• 43% are reporters and another 22% are mid-level editors
• They would hire more reporters and editors, improve print content and improve the Web site design, in that order.
The Status Quo segment, at 14%, believe the 30% of effort they currently devote to online is sufficient and expect little disruption to the way they work now. In newsrooms where improving digital performance is a top strategic priority, this group will need a wake-up call. These journalists believe the evolution of newspapers has gone far enough. Just less than a third of their current effort centers online and they would prefer to see no change.
Most of the Status Quos believe the pace of change to date has been “about right,” whether in respect to their own job or newsroom-wide change. They forecast more moderate or minimal changes to come than the rest of the newsroom. This group is slightly older than the overall population. Nearly half are age 50 or older and 1-in-10 is 60 or older.
If put in command, they would:
• First hire more reporters and editors
• Invest in improving print content
• Support online investment, but third after print improvements and increasing manpower
Turn Back the Clock segment represents 6% of journalists who wish it would all go away. This part of the staff would go more heavily into print if they could. They report about 30% of their current effort is spent online, nearly triple the amount they would prefer. This is a group that has tested the online environment and they don’t like it.
This group weighs toward reporters and photographers and they closely mirror the newsroom average for age and years until retirement. What particularly sets them apart from others is their low levels of adaptability. Asked to rate themselves on openness to change, how they approach change at work, and career resilience, they rated significantly lower than other print employees and dramatically lower than digital employees or senior managers.
Individuals in this group report being less satisfied than their Status Quo colleagues. They also have the lowest opinion of leaders of all the groups and are least likely, in particular, to believe executives really understand what it takes to put out the newspaper.
Leaders, at 5%, are publishers, editors and managing editors, most of whom have been in the news business more than 20 years. Most report their roles are primarily print-focused but want to shift to online. Like Digitals, they describe themselves as open to change and optimistic about their career options.
• Publishers, editors and managing editors indicate they are spending about a quarter of their work effort on online matters, but believe the emphasis should shift to favor digital (53%) over print responsibilities
• 28% of leaders think their job is changing too fast overall, which could reflect the lack of clarity around a business model to sustain digitally delivered journalism.
• Leaders tend to be more than a decade older (49), and 77% have been in the news business more than 20 years, including 42% for more than 30 years.
• Leaders are more confident in the overall direction of the newsroom, with nearly 70% saying the newsroom is on the right track, as compared to about 45% of Digitals.
• This group reports somewhat greater Internet use outside work than other journalists. On the job, they use the Internet as a reporting or editing tool, but likely not for much else. Given their druthers, they would post more, plan more and link more online.
The study concludes with challenge the leaders face:
• Journalists’ passion for the mission is there, but they need basic tools for reinvention and more engaged leadership. More than half of the journalists working primarily in print had no training in the previous year to equip them for a digital transition. One in four journalists reports having had no training at all
• There are major gaps between how leaders think they are doing and how staff view them, in such areas as fostering collaboration, seeking out input from employees at all levels, and communicating strategy in a way that relates to employees’ jobs
In addition, there are differing expectations for leaders among the segments:
• Digitals want leaders to be even more immersed in online trends and to sharpen the digital vision
• Major Shifts want more risk-taking
• Status Quos generally like what leaders are doing and advocate staying the course.

Source/Credits/More: : http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/research/lifebeyondprint.asp

#RequiredReading: Stuck on Type? (and GOIN’ POSTAL!)… More on MBTI…

Apropos MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and WHY for some Social Media is just NOT goin’ to EVER cut it… “… Introverts must OFTEN feel like the Old Woman whom the well-intentioned Boy Scout kept trying to help across the street; the only problem? She just DID NOT WANT TO GO!” (Tieger & Barron-Tieger, 1998 “The Art Of Speed Reading People)

So yeah, by now I’m also thinkin’ of dear ‘zombies’ such as James B Dreisbach and Juancho Arraiz (yeah, u owe me a phone call, buddy!) and of course Ellen Soto and maybe even Adriana Mihaly et al… Gotta finish this though… “Extraverts are NOTORIOUS for trying to get their INTROVERTED friends, coworkers, spouses or children INVOLVED in activities they would rather AVOID… ” (SOUNDS familiar, y’all ‘E’ Types?)… (ibid) #ShallBlogAboutThisSnippetNext (And what would Kare Anderson say ’bout this too? Mind-Mappin’ wise?)

Voila!

… now try to mind-map THAT!… (Hint: if you read the book, you’ll notice that I DID alter the sequence for “punchline” effects… hehehe!)

[CHORTLES]

Oh! What Thomas Mann would do to be here on FB-land!

So yeah, who’d have thunk that Mind-Mappin’, Word-Games and Etymology, all COULD be combined in a famous Celebrity! (yeah, I’m still on that MBTI rant… get it? D’Onofrio? … check your ‘Saints’… got it? if not, ask Dr. Schmidt why he thought it ‘vital’ for me to find this pic?)(Well, besides my obvious fan-ship of the third sibling in the L&O Syndication Family, of course!)

[L&O SOUND FX… FLUTES… INTRO JINGLE…]

[GUFFAWS]

… and DEFINITELY a reason to study type? why some just go POSTAL when FORCED into Societal Situations that just DO NOT FIT? (Credit to Stanley Kubrick, though, for such a FORCEFUL illustration… ready for more Vincent?)

Seriously!… as The Tiegers continue around the same page…

“It’s not always possible to look to your work to determine your type, because many people’s work is not welll suited to their preferences. Frequently, Extraverts end up doing jobs [Yup, what is the army after all but just another job, for many?] better suited to Introverts and vice versa. If you are an Introvert, imagine what it would feel like t work as a tour guide or receptionist, where all day, each day, your job required you to meet and greet dozens of strangers, engage them in small talk, and make them feel comfortable.  Now for you Extraverts, imagine a job as a researcher, working on one project for weeks at a time, completely alone, without the infusion of energy you get from interacting with other people, or talking about different projects. Neither is a bad job, but both are potential prescriptions for frustration and BURNOUT [CAPS MINE!] if held by people not naturally suited to them” (Tieger and Barron-Tieger, “The Art of Speed Reading People”, 1998, p 15-16)

WHOA!… I think I’m actually ALSO making a case for MARTIAL DISCIPLINE?

[STANDS IN ATTENTION]

[CRIES OUT!]

“All preeeeesent and accounted for!!!!’

Need the IMDB Snippet to get this into your NetFlix queue? (Yup, assume some millenials may see Kubrick as some of us see Welles, too!)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/

And the Wiki-Zeitgeist? WOW

A two-segment look at the effect of the military mindset and war itself on Vietnam era Marines. The first half follows a group of recruits in basic training under the command of the punishing Sgt. Hartman. The second half shows one of those recruits, Joker, covering the war as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, focusing on the Tet offensive.  Written by Scott Renshaw {as.idc@forsythe.stanford.edu}

A two-segment story that follows young men from the start of recruit training in the Marine Corps to the lethal cauldron known as Vietnam. The first segment follows Joker, Pyle and others as they progress through the hell of USMC boot-camp at the hands of the colorful, foul-mouthed Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second begins in Vietnam, near Hue, at the time of the Tet Offensive. Joker, along with Animal Mother, Rafterman and others, face threats such as ambush, booby traps, and Viet Cong snipers as they move through the city. Written by Derek O’Cain

Full Metal Jacket begins by following the trials and tribulations of a platoon of fresh Marine Corps recruits focusing on the relationship between Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and Privates Pyle and Joker. We see Pyle grow into an instrument of death as Hartman has forseen of all of his recruits. Through Pyle’s torment and Joker’s unwillingness to stand up against it the climax of part one is achieved with all three main characters deciding their fates by their action or inaction. The second chapter of Full Metal Jacket delves into Joker’s psyche and the repeated referal to the fact that he joined the Corps to become a killer. When his mostly behind the scenes job as a combat correspondant is interfered with by the Tet offensive he is thrust into real combat and ultimately must choose if he really is a killer. Written by FMJ_Joker

During the Vietnam War private ‘Joker’ -the narrator, a future author- and his class are put through US marines training in gunnery sergeant Hartman’s verbally and physically abusive, sex-obsessed style. It’s all far worse for fat simpleton Pyle, who keeps doing everything wrong, even when gentle Joker is appointed his personal tutor, till peer pressure becomes group bullying. On their last day on Paris Island, when everyone graduates, the psychological time-bomb explodes. Only intellectual Joker isn’t assigned to jungle duty but as military war correspondent. He’s unwilling to play the deceptive propaganda game and violence catches up even in the ‘safe’ city Hue. Written by KGF Vissers (IMDB.Com, 2009)

Quotes?

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: I’m Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor, from now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and the last word out of your filthy sewers will be “Sir”. Do you maggots understand that?

[recruits answers: Sir. Yes Sir!]

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Bullshit I can’t hear you. Sound off like you got a pair!

[recruits repeats with a louder tone]

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human, fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit. Because I am hard you will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. Do you maggots understand that?

More?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/quotes

(So can this still be called a “Wall Photo”?)

Nupe… now it’s a “Blog” Photo… with a Tweet!

#SpeedBlogging, anyone? with a #Pictorial Twist? Apropos #Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”, MBTI (Myers-Briggs) etc… http://bit.ly/33eDoL #FB

Stream Nuggets: “Reason” Blog (@ReasonApplied)

Found this GEM this morning, thought of archiving the source, addin’ the RSS feed to my blog, and yeah, sharin’ it within these confines…

[HATS OFF TO “Peter Holmes” AND YEAH… ON TWITTER? http://twitter.com/reasonapplied or @ReasonApplied]

“We think so and that’s what we’re doing. We team a strategic planner with a creative idea person and a technology person in what we call a cell. The cell is the key contact and collaborator with our clients. Integration is achieved at the point of planning and each person in the cell is free to collaborate with whoever they need to execute. This is the foundation of our structure and what we believe is a more relevant model for the 21^st century. We also recognize that not many agencies can do this. Especially the large ones, organized as they are around silos.

For example, a former protégé of mine who is now working for a large, well known agency as a creative director, recently lost his art director partner. To replace him and to try something new he suggested to management that he be paired with the creative director of their digital silo. Everybody thought that would be a good idea, until it dawned on them that both are responsible for their own profit and loss, as well as the management of their respective silos and disciplines, making it impossible.

Large agencies are too heavily invested in the old way of doing things and find it difficult enough to experiment, let alone change. In fact, they’re addicted to building silos. As soon as a new discipline, or way of making money is identified, up goes a silo. [<<<SCATHING!]

The main problem with silos are the walls. Silos force everything through the lens of their own particular discipline. Insulated from the real world, the idea serves execution, rather than vice versa. And miraculously, all client problems can be solved by the thinking inside each particular silo alone.

Foggy Times?

Is this the best way to serve client needs and solve their problems efficiently, creatively and fast?

How can the product coming from this antiquated organizational structure be called integrated, when any sort of integration happens not at the point of planning, but instead is cobbled together sometime after the fact?”

(Reason, 2009)

Source: http://ow.ly/uLGG

Someone Stops Twittering… yet rhap-sodizes about it?

Source: Mashable

Miley Cyrus Quits Twitter, Raps About It [YouTube Video]

Miley Cyrus deleted her Twitter account this week, citing the fact that tabloids were using the Tweets as fodder for their stories.

But while deleting an online profile doesn’t usually require more than a few clicks, Cyrus went the extra mile and wrote a rap about her reasons for abandoning the site, writes the Daily Mail.

Choice lyrics include “The reasons are simple: I started tweeting about pimples. I stopped living for moments and started living for people,” and “Everything that I type and everything that I do, all those lame gossip sites take it and make it news.”

Miley’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, urged the singer to return to Twitter (Twitter) in a Tweet on Thursday, writing “You can’t leave everyone now.We r countin on u”.

Now, to fix that door...

http://mashable.com/2009/10/10/miley-cyrus-quits-twitter-video/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1219408/I-deleted-Twitter-yall-Miley-Cyrus-makes-home-rap-video-explain-left-social-networking-site.html

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Miley Cyrus Quits Twitter, Raps About It [YouTube Video]

From The Second Search Engine: Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock” Narrated by Orson Welles

Here is a series of videos produced by McGraw Hill, which IMHO, explain why there’s still a pretty large contingent of people that will not embrace these technologies as fast as we’d like them to… Ready to ride the Time Machine?

From Fast Company, an “Overture to a Complete Educational Remix”

Based on a recent article disseminated via Facebook’s Home Stream, Fast Company magazine put out an article on the current movement aimed at integrating the free content some institutions have already posted on the web, and how such content could someday be integrated into a degree, in ways hitherto unexplored in higher education.

“A free, peer-to-peer Wiki university? These all exist today, the overture to a complete educational remix” http://bit.ly/l63Td @FastCompany

8:25 AM Sep 4th from web

The article, written by Anya Kamenetz, actually contains the word “Web-Savvy Edupunks” in its title; and with the key word being transforming, became a must-read for the author, in spite of it being a rather lengthy four pages online; was it worth it? You betcha, as I for one became a believer upon enrolling at University of Phoenix, currently the largest private university in the U.S., and a virtual unknown less than a decade ago, and whose business blueprint is now being copied by most every other outfit out there that plans to stay in business in the near future.

After a 1996 comparison with higher university being much like a string quartet, Kamenetz reminds us of the speed of change, by stating: “Suddenly, it is possible to imagine a new model of education using online resources to serve more students, more cheaply than ever before.” (Kamenetz, Fast Company, 2009)

Personally, I think the issue of cost is what will make these efforts viable, as with most every other area of our lives that the internet has touched, said cost benefits find their biggest impact in those places where issues of dire poverty and basic access to life’s conveniences are perhaps even seen as a luxury, as was my case when I dropped out of college here in the U.S., only to find that even though it was public and free, higher education in my country was actually more ‘expensive’, in many ways, than the humble community college I had to leave behind – and then, remain a dropout for over a decade, as I had to forfeit getting a degree for the dangers of bankruptcy and foreclosure that loomed over the family’s finances.

So it is easy to imagine, that outside the geographic borders of the U.S.A, and much like services such as Pay-Pal have blurred the lines of banking and finance at the microeconomic level, the thirst for these materials, now freely available to anyone who thinks of himself as an autodidact, and perhaps ready to be shaped in the next iteration of old fashioned “correspondence school”, can be.

To close this blog post, here is a quote that summarizes the thrust of the effort:

Sharpen away!

‘”The Internet disrupts any industry whose core product can be reduced to ones and zeros,” says Jose Ferreira, founder and CEO of education startup Knewton. Education, he says, “is the biggest virgin forest out there.” Ferreira is among a loose-knit band of education 2.0 architects sharpening their saws for that forest.’ (ibid)

So therefore, seeing that an institution of the stature of MIT is the one leading the charge, that very soon us foreign students may be able to telecommute to Cambridge, and for a fraction of the effort, obtain a bonafide U.S. higher education certification.

Can only picture the impact in the economies of emerging nations, as again, a large percentage of international students come precisely from those places where the watering holes of knowledge can sometimes be as parched – as a summery stretch of the Kalahari.

Luddites Redux: The Social Media Chapter

Luddite Redux?

Personally, I find it rather disheartening to hear these “Luddite” kind of arguments being thrown out at new technology, specially when some of us are aware of the fact that the increasing number of users is merely fueling the ability of the developers to crank out more and more features, and getting some decision makers to start thinking about these “fads” as real business tools, which can help people communicate with each other – and make money in the process.

Today’s argument came from what I’ve come to consider as the proverbial well, Twitter:

@SocialMediaList Social networking: Filling a need or creating one? http://bit.ly/3o5k49 …. 3 minutes ago from twitterfeed

Upon review of the article on the link, penned by Dave Churchill, and after finding that his main angle merely derived on some early adopters now perhaps having moved on to the latest and greatest craze – precisely because of them being early adopters, perhaps?

So this simple fact gave Dave the ammunition to tell himself that, “For my part, I’m going to risk life without social networking…” an argument much like the ones we used to hear – and still do, believe me! – about more mature technologies such as email, texting, and uploading videos to the web (which according to the heads at Google, is not only worth the hassle and money of expanding one of the largest infrastructures ever deployed out in the cloud, as the adage about “a thousand words” echoes in the clips and snippets loaded to it every minute) which, if we are to believe half the hype of certain product launches, are key to key consumer demographics.

Point being, every time I personally hear someone decrying the push others have imposed on them, as in Dave’s case it was a matter of both challenging his age, but also, challenging his need to expand outside the boundaries of what he used to consider to be his job, I can vividly depict the many instances in the history of technology, specially in the last few centuries, where a group of established users challenged the advantages of newer technologies.

Not that I was glad to read his work on the online edition of his publication, which allowed me to get in touch with his point of view at the click of a mouse, but that as we all hear the bad news about the newspaper industry settling into the latter chapters of its history, and as many others have been reshaped by the Internet, is there room nowadays to disregard the advent of such changes?

I for one try to at least find out the “angle” or better, the rationale behind why not only millions of users are congregating in these “watering holes” of information, but also, why are corporations putting their money, sometimes subtly or sometimes with a lot of gusto and bravado, behind them?

In the case of Social Media, a recent article in Fortune stated, much like I’ve been mentioning since I started getting more and more into the application functionality of Facebook, that the time for corporations to start asking for these feature sets in their Enterprise Groupware was near, as those of us in technology know how comfortable it would be to migrate from a large and distributed Exchange organization, for example, onto an SaaS (Software-as-a-Service, the newest moniker for the old ASP, or Application Service Provider business model of the late nineties), thin-client and mobile enabled private, secure version of that same software that we learned to use so well, whilst being facetious with our friends?

[CRACKBERRI BEEPS…]

[ANOTHER FACEBOOK NOTIFICATION AWAITS]

… or was it a work notification in there?

Para la version en castellano, aqui

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