Crowdsourcing, is it useful or what?

Hello all and welcome to my blog. Once again I will be talking about topics regarding Strategic Communication. This week I will talking about crowdsourcing and the usefulness of crowdsourcing. So, what is crowdsoucrcing? The definition of crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. How can we use crowdsourcing? Well crowdsourcing can be used to gather thousands of contributors to add a contribution for the greater good of success. In our everyday lives crowdsourcing is used especially online. People who have issues with appliances, cars, smartphones, etc. you can go online and you're guaranteed to find a forum where people are expereicning the same issue and have things you can try to fix it before spending money or shipping your product back to the company that made it to fix it. I myself have been on forums for my video game consoles, my televisions, my vehicle, and my smartphone for issues I was having and in most cases I was able to get my issued resolved without having to spend money. Other crowdsourcing on the internet is a venue individuals can use to share their projects while not being scrutinized. The projects can be worked on with as little or as many people as needed or whoever wants to be apart of it. An example would be Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited internet encyclopedia. Any one with access to the internet and access to the site can edit almost any of the articles. The danger in that is that all the information on Wikipedia is not always accurate and if 500 million visitors a month to the site errors and misinformation are to be expected.

Types of Crowdsourcing

There are several different types of crowdsourcing that can be used in the commercial world. These include crowdvoting, crowdfunding, creative crowdsourcing and inducement prize contests. I am going to talk about crowdfunding since I know more about this type of crowdsourcing. The reason I know a bit about crowdfunding is because I am videogamer and just like major record companies, movie studios, and video game companies, there are independent ones. Usually, an indie video game company launches a crowdfunding campaign to secure funds to fund their project and get it on the device of their choice whether that be a video game console, pc, mac, smartphone, etc. This type of crowdfunding is called a kickstarter. The Ouya microconsole is an example of the second most successful kickstarter campaign. Over $8.5 million was raised to fund the device. When people are passionate about something and they can find other people to fund their project it's almost always successful. There is a 43.99% success rate for projects thats get crowdfunded. Other notable thing about crowdfunding it's used to support citizen journalism which I talked about last week.

Another type of crowdsourcing is called crowdsourcing creative work or CCW. It is an open call to the crowd for novel and useful solutions. When experts are in scarce supply, multiple diverse ideas and contextual insights are needed. So, you get a bunch of like minded people together with great ideas and in most cases crowdsourcing works.

Innovation

In one of our articles this week it talks about crowdsourcing overlapping with collaborative innovation such as open innovation and user innovation. I can agree with that. Crowdsourcing is all about innovation and you get to innovate with lots of different people. There is a figure in the article that shows crowdsourcing with co-creation overlapping with crowdsourcing, user innovation and open innovation. 

Individuality

Despite this age of collaboration, we are still living in an age of increased individuality. One of our articles this week talks about the Age of Reason, the rise of digital communication. This new age will empower individuals at the expense of the elite. So, what does that mean exactly? Well, to me that means that communications will be catered to the individual. For example several different people can go onto Google to search for something. They will log into their Google accounts and based on their search history, viewing history, they will get different results by searching for the same thing. I have several Google accounts. One that I had to create when Google bought YouTube and one that I had to create when I got my first android smartphone. It keeps a record of my contacts and search history in Google. When using the different accounts I get different results from each search because on the older account I was searching for different things then what I search for now. The same can be same about all the people that use Google. Despite this individuality, peopled viewpoints may not be getting across. According to the article written by Yasmin Anwar, less than 10 percent of the U.S. population is participating in most online production activities. Alot of that from what the article says comes from the digital divide between the poor and working classes lacking the resources to participate online. This article was written in 2011 and so I am sure that 10 percent has to have gone up as almost every device has internet from your phone and tablet, to your library, school, McDonalds. 

The Rise of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is definitely in full effect. Internet usage is higher than ever even though as recent as 2012, North America only made up 11.4% of the internet users in the world. Asia actually has 44.8% users online. This goes back into what I was saying about the digital divide. If North America wants to be on top with innovation, this has to change and hopefully it already has. We have to make a way to have affordable internet, which people of all classes can get online and benefit from what it has to offer. Crowdsourcing has definitely shown that people do want to collaborate and expand on their ideas. Thank you for reading my blog this week and tune in next week for my next posting.

Citizen Journalism- In us we trust

Hello all and welcome to this week’s blog posting. Today I will be discussing topics such as citizen journalism, blogging, and how to sort through it all. First off, what is citizen journalism? Well according to Dr. Anthony Curtis from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, citizen journalism is the gathering, writing, editing, production and distribution of news and information by people not trained as professional journalists. These citizen journalists collect and analyze news on blogs, wikis and sharing websites suing tablets, laptops, cell phones, digital cameras and other mobile and wireless technologies. So, all of us that write blogs, add information to websites such as Wikipedia, we are citizen journalists. On our readings this week, they talk about citizen journalists, bloggers and how people are more trustworthy of blogs than professionals. How did this come to be? Well, I believe it is surprisingly simple. People tend to trust people they know, people they see every day or people they could actually meet. Think about this, if you meet this big time financial analyst that is all about business and making money for themselves who would you trust? Now, is citizen journalism a good thing or bad thing? I believe it has it pros and cons and I'm going to explain why.

Pros of Citizen Journalism

There was one point in time before the explosion of the internet that people had to mail in letters to get their voices or points out to the general public. Now with the internet we have today, it is possible to reach everyone on earth who has Internet and mainstream media has taken notice. Despite budget cuts to U.S. newspapers, mainstream media outlets have moved to incorporate elements of citizen journalism into their news programs and publications. Cable news network’s solicit viewer photos and videos of breaking news stories while newspaper reporters write blogs and update twitter accounts inviting reader interaction and participation. Say for instance you have a local news paper that doesn't have the staff to cover something going on at city hall. You can have bloggers step in to publicize issues that matter to local readers. Where I live we get the major newspaper everyday but we also have a local newspaper that publishes once a week. The building that publishes the local paper is small and I'm sure the staff is even smaller so having bloggers and other citizen journalists contribute to the paper can only be good for the city. Citizen journalism gives the ability to reach areas or situations where regular journalists are prohibited or unavailable. It can supplement mainstream media by providing instant/real-time coverage. With the rise of smartphones it has become so easy to take pictures and videos and instantly upload them online where news stations can use them. Citizen Journalism has definitely become a big thing today. We read an article a few weeks ago we read about the Cleveland Indians breaking away from traditional media and inviting anyone with a social media account to apply for single-day credentials to gain access into the suite on the media level and game day information. If that doesn't tell you that citizen journalism is here to stay I don't know what else will. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, and all other social media have made it possible to express our views more than ever. It has made the world so much smaller and it is very exciting. It has also made it all the more dangerous because of all of the information on the World Wide Web and I will get into that next.

Cons of Citizen Journalism

There are just as many cons to citizen journalism as there is the pros. For starters, most citizen journalists are not trained in journalism. They don't adhere to certain standards like fact checking, naming sources, searching out opinions on both sides of an issue and avoiding libelous statements. Another issue we are facing is the rise of the Internet as a communications tool has led to massive budget cuts to U.S. newspapers. If you can access most of the news you want to know online, why would you go out and buy a paper? I myself rarely buy a paper or watch the news because I can access all of that information online. When I log into my email it automatically gives me links to check the local and national news. People that I'm friends with on Facebook will post something that's going on in the area and I can click on the link to or Google search for whatever they are talking about. With all of this instant access to information, why wait on the news, magazines, or newspapers to publish it? Lets get back to professional journalists. Professionals often view citizen journalists with skepticism because they don't uphold the traditional journalistic value of objectivity. They say reports from citizen journalists are subjective, amateurish and inaccurate. They see citizen journalism's quality as not professional and its coverage spotty. They believe that only professionally trained journalists can understand the ethics required which that can be argued on both sides. It could also be argued that citizen journalists could compromise security, lead to riots, have greater error margin and report biased news.

Source Diversity

According to the article by Serena Carpenter (Source Diversity in U.S. Online Citizen Journalism and Online Newspaper Articles) traditional news organizations have begun to adopt online citizen journalism such as USA Today bringing in online citizen generated content or CNN with their 3,000 citizen journalism submissions per month. My local news station is always getting posts, pictures, and videos from people in the community. Despite the controversy and the effect this is having on news today, having a diversity of sources can only help. You get information that is outside the box and not standardized, typical content. Herbert J Gans argues that the diversity of sources present in the news media is the answer to reducing biases of reporters. With more information out there it makes for more diversity in the sources which will lead to less error. In the end I believe that the pros outweigh the cons of citizen journalism and traditional media outlets will continue to incorporate citizen journalists into their world. This can only benefit us the public in the end as long as the sources are deciphered for credibility. Thank you for reading my blog this week and I will be back next week. 

Social Media, A wonderful thing if used correctly

Hello fellow classmates and anyone else interested in Strategic Communications, I am back with my post for this week and it's a doozy. Today I will be talking about social media. So, what do you think when you hear the word social media? Does Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, MySpace (although I don't know who still uses MySpace lol) and other social media sites come to mind? Well, you are correct. These are all social media websites and they are websites that I myself use very frequently, except for MySpace of course. I haven't used that in years. The definition of social media is the interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media has taken over how we communicate with people. I started using Facebook back in its early days when it was regulated to colleges only. I could see the potential back then and now I can stay in contact with friends I had back when I was 6 years old to high school, college, family members etc. I also have an artist page where I promote my music. Social media has so much potential and businesses have caught on and have created their own pages to advertise their products.

Leadership

One of the articles we read this week talks about social media and how it has changed being a leader. It talks about how today's leader tend to shy away from social media and that companies today need new types of leaders that aren't afraid of social media and that can not only use social media, but make others better at using them. With leaders going on to social media it gives them direct access to the people. With that type of access you can find out directly from the people their concerns, issues, and what they think about how you are conducting business. Today's leaders should not be afraid of this but take this as a challenge to better themselves and better whichever company they represent. If we had more strong social media literate leaders, maybe businesses would go bankrupt, or the leaders would better understand the people and what they want. This was a good article, a short article but a good article. 

Posting confessions to personal blog?

Okay everyone this I don't understand. One of the articles we read this week talks about a reporter and how she was fired after posting a list of confessions to her personal blog. Now, everyone in the world can go your blog and read it, so why do something like this? This is where social media can get dangerous. When you are in a position like this such as a news reporter, you are always being looked at. I know that alot of people in communications keep a personal blog but that blog should be talking about stuff related to communications, and things going on in the world. She basically told all about stealing mail, taking naps on the job, stopping the recordings on people she is interviewing if she thinks you unnecessary for a story. Just very unprofessional if you ask me. She has committed career suicide. Who would want to hire her after this? Would you?

Brand Ambassadors

This is really interesting to me and it's something I wish other companies would incorporate. Now, I had no idea about this before reading the article but it is a great idea. This "social suite" that the Cleveland Indians in Major League Baseball incorporated in the spring of 2011. With this idea, the Cleveland Indians broke away from traditional media access and invited the public into their media sphere by having anyone with a social media account apply for single-day credentials to gain access into the suite on the media level and game-day information that was traditionally reserved for news outlets. Wow! I absolutely hate baseball but I would  apply to get a chance to be in that suite and see what its like. Just imagine if more teams, more companies, everybody started doing this? Do you all realize how far social media has come? I hope that we see many more companies incorporating this. Think about what this would mean for a college student majoring in communications, to get an up close and personal look at the world they want to get into. I struggled to find internships to complete my undergraduate degree because of my lack of networking at the time. (Also I love my school but they were not very helpful in me finding internships.) I struggled for two years to find a decent job after graduation. Internships would be much easier to get with the help of social and being able to talk directly to the people you want to intern with.

Are you Facebook, Twitter or both?

Now, I don't know about you guys about like I said earlier I was an early adopter of Facebook having created my first account in 2005. Over the years I've gotten very comfortable with how to use Facebook though they do updates every now and then that annoys me. I was late to the Twitter party simply because I just didn't understand it and why I should have a Twitter account. I eventually created an account in July of 2011 and it took me awhile to figure what to do with it. Finally I got the idea that I could use it to promote my music which I still do now. Though I still don't have as many followers as I would like, I have gotten some pretty good connections to other musically inclined people. Now when of the articles we read this week calls twitter a combination of blogging, text messaging and broadcasting. They call it micro-blogging. That makes sense. Your Twitter account is essentially a short 140 word blog about what you think about certain things, certain people, current events, etc. In the world of communications, and the millions of people on twitter today, it is simple to post something like current news, with a link that directs you to their website for the full story. You are getting more traffic directed to your website and it doesn't cost you a thing.

In conclusion, what has been learned this week is that social media can be so beneficial to people, companies, etc. if used correctly. Look at the reporter that lost her job because she posted confessions on her blog as an example of what not to do with social media. Be smart everybody and tune in next week for my next blog. Until next time. 

 

The explosion of the mobile device

Hello all! Welcome back to my blog. I hope you all have been enjoying my blogs for the last couple of weeks as I have truly enjoyed writing them. I never knew that this could be so interesting. Well, this week we are talking about mobile devices. This definitely fits as an emerging media. The mobile phone has shown an increasingly number of people using it to access the internet over the last few years. Whether it be updating your Facebook status, comparing prices on amazon to things in the store (which is something I do all the time gotta save money lol) streaming music through iheart radio or Pandora the mobile phone experience has definitely evolved over the years. What this discussion is this week is how can a strategic communication professional use mobile devices in an efficient and ethical manner. Well, a strategic communication professional can use mobile devices to get instant news out. With your mobile device you can take notes, take pictures, use the mobile versions of word, powerpoint etc. and submit your work as the news happens either to your blog, your boss, etc. By the minute news with the help of a single mobile device seems like the future to me. No longer having to carry a notepad, tape recorder or even a face to face interview now that we have facetime, Skype and other video chat options. So, if it's easier, what's the problem? Well some people do have a problem with it. Easier is not so much always better. Mobile devices have the potential to devastate someone's privacy with gps integration to locate people. Hack into their device and get passwords, bank information etc. The increase in mobile users is really making it critical to have better security measures in place.

The Underprivileged

One of the articles we read this week talks about using mobile applications for the underprivileged to provide services in developing countries. I think that is a great idea. There are so many mobile phones and devices on the market now that it would be relatively easy to get a phone and provide those services that people need. They just need to make sure that there is no backlash with the usage of the mobile devices such is in the story Dr. Padgett told us about Dr. Mayo and those villagers using the mobile phone to find jobs and leave the village.

Mobile phones disrupting?

Now this is an issue that I want to discuss. The mobile phone is a great device with great features to make life a lot easier. I am noticing though with being a teacher now that they can be very disruptive to the learning that goes on in the classroom. I graduated in 2002 when mobile devices particularly smartphones weren't around yet and weren't a big issue. Today however, a lot of my students are always messing with their smartphones and I'm having to take them away. It is already difficult to retain their attention but the boom of smartphones has really taken their attention. A lot of phone companies do have an option that you can setup that limits the other smartphones on the account such as when the internet can be used and when phone calls can be made. They can be set so their phones would be useless during school hours and thus have no choice but to pay attention in class. Now their our advantages to smartphones for educational purposes such as using as a second screen, access to diagrams, articles, essays and other academic information.

Mobile Too

One of the other topics that has been discussed this week is mobile first and if companies should start implementing mobile first. My opinion about it is the same as one of the articles that we read. Although the smartphone market has exploded over the last few years, there are still millions of people who have not yet adopted smartphones as their primary phone and so I think that they television companies etc. should adopt a mobile too approach. Whether it be television, radio, newspapers etc. with multiple options you can satisfy all of your consumers. We were also talking about WTSU which is Troy University's radio station. They are in a small market and doesn't get a lot of advertising. The discussion we were having was should they adopt a mobile first strategy and if so is that wise for a community radio station in a small market community. What I thought about it is a mobile first approach is not a good approach for this radio station. They first need to grow their audience with the students. Make the students more aware that the radio station exists. Since there are students at multiple campuses and count for a total of 29,689 there should no problem getting the word out because the students can make the station aware to people outside of the university. Then they can use social media to promote, use mobile devices to send notifications about upcoming events, shows etc. Before all of that though, their greatest marketing tool is their students. So use it!

Another way that mobile devices can help with is in hospitals. I actually took the time and read and article from the JAMIA, which is the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. In the article, it discusses the impact of mobile devices by providing instant access to information, resources, and people at the right time and place. Think about how the mobile devices can help with rapid response, error prevention and data management. Think about how more lives can be saved and making sure there are no errors in medicine and treatment being given. But back to Strategic Communication. In closing, mobile devices is definitely the future of how we access content but, to go with a mobile first or mobile only strategy isn't a good idea. At least not yet. I hope you all have enjoyed my blog for this week and keep an eye out for next weeks blog. Until next time.