Thoughts about Blogging Future

I find it really hard to write about something new since we covered great deal about social networking and blog and cooperative tools. In this post I would like to talk about things that I’m thinking of doing.

First of all, I’m thinking of changing my major from computer science to IT since I really find it very important for businesses and I’m sure what I learn in this class would help me a lot ( please if you have thought or comments about this feel free to respond). I’m also thinking about continuing writing and commenting in blogs. I really feel it is something very important to fallowing especially if I’m going to specialized in IT. I’m also thinking of having a blog about my country. In this blog about Saudi Arabia, I would like to talk mainly about two things cultures and businesses there. I’m also sure that I’ll have great use of blogging in my other classes.

I also would like to keep reading and commenting other people’s blogs. I think if I keep reading blogs I would improve my writing and my knowledge. I think it is also good way to make people visit my blog.

I’m sure I need some help. So I’ll ask my friends here and also my friends from back home to participate in my blog. This would help establishing blogs in Arabic since I do not know any that my friends are participating in so far. It also will make great diversity since ( hopefully ) I’ll have people commenting from deferent backgrounds and I’m sure that would really help me when I work and need to blog for my job.

I wish you guys have great summer and I also wish that we remain faithful to our blogs. Hopefully we visit each others blogs and participate in it.

Who's faster

When I read this article by Thomas Claburn about Web 2.0 Arrives to Find Web 3.0 Under Way I immediately thought about two things. First what’s web 3.0 and unfortunately nobody knows exactly what it is and the another point came to my mind when I read about a government agency that its system “required 22 terabytes of random access memory to handle the complex data processing and it was still unstable. When it crashed, he said, it took a week to boot up.” , is who is doing better job people trying to work in hardware or people working in software and also to which level they affect each other.

I find it really interesting when the prices of memory RAM and the Hard drives went down after being ridiculously expensive. Was that because the new software do not need that much memory as it used to be or it is just that the cost of producing decreased.

As I’m thinking of changing my major from Computer Science to IT another thing jumped to my mind is it better to study and work in software development or hardware development or know some of both. Is it enough to know how to use the technology or I must know how it was made.

If you have answers to my questions please help me out here 

Hmmm have fun or get hires ?!

I read the article ">Facebook, Jobster to Launch A Site for Young Job Seekers about Facebook and Jobster planning to cooperate togather to help in job search. I'm realy not sure about it. I think this would really change the idea of having fun in the facebook. I also remmeber one of the guys in the class mentiond that he couldn't get a job because of his facebook account. So I'm realy not sure how this would work. I think this would take Facebook to another level. It think it will be boring and people will think many times before posting anything. as mentiond in the article "While social-networking sites are making it easier for job seekers to connect with recruiters online, prospective hires must be more cautious of what they post on the Internet. The sites could also expose embarrassing photos and comments to potential employers or recruiters. Users will have to be more careful what information they post, or "tag," in the profiles they create through the Facebook career site than they would for a social-networking profile."

On the other hand, I really think it is great idea and it might really help businesses and users to get benefit of this cooperation. It will safe time but will it provides the right image about the condidate.

Why they do not send a message to all Facebook users to encourage users to open an account with Jobster instead of getting into the facebook profile. This would leave facebook fun as it is and will do the things for Jobster .

Wait Don't Buy New Phone

In Your First Day at Work DO NOT BLOG

I think what happened to Mark Jen is really sad and I feel bad for him. I think he made a mistake when he bloged about his company and I fully agree with Robert Scoble that Mark should wait until he become trusted by the company before starting blogging about it. Myself, I wont like it if a new employee say bad things about the company or criticizes its policies or managers. I think such employee who does not give him self time to really understand what is really going on in the company should be terminated since he would cause a lot of problems for the company by giving quick judgments and writing about them.

I think Mark should have talked to his boss and colleagues about these issues and he might get some answers which might change hid view of the company. He also mentioned that he wrote some comments about future products and I assume he wrote something against them which would might cause drop in sale for these products. I think if he went to his boss and told me about what he thought about these product or he wrote a report and file it to the involved department would be much better cause if his points are write they would conceder them and make changes otherwise they might explain their point of view and he probably would get credit for that.

I liked Mark standing what he believes in but we have to be careful and smart Robert said. In his blog Mark also mentioned that blog is a powerful tool and I agree with him but it can be for you and also it can be against you as we have seen more than a person were fired because of blogging.

Good or Bad

As I read in Teamwork, Supercharged, I rememberd something similer hapend while I was working and also I get to think it is really hard to adapt new technology in a company and I think it is harder to get employees to use this technology. The decision is hard to take by the owner or the manager of a company. They might think that if things are working probably in the traditional way why we spend money and take a risk in new things. A smart manager who can really make such decisions and save a lot of time and money.

The other abstract of adapting new technology is to get the employees to use it. You do not want to spend a lot of money and waste your time looking for technologies that help getting the job done but no one in your office are using it. I remember at my previous job we have some programs that we paid a lot of money for but unfortunately non of the workers used them. I discovered this by a chance while I was going through the company’s programs licenses. I went to the general manager and I discussed this issue and he said that they bought this programs long time ago and these are really very helpful tools and he was surprised that nobody was using them. We forced the employees to use some of the programs which they really like and get used to and we had to get rid of some other programs that the employees would never learn to use them easily. It would cost the company a lot money and time to train the employees to use these programs that is why we decided to exchange them for other programs.

So it was good decision from the general manager to buy some of the programs and in the other hand was bad decision to buy the other programs that we could not use in the company. I also think if he did not make the decision of buying these new software by himself the employees would never ask for such programs since they think it is easier for them to keep working in the old programs so they wont spend a lot of time learning how to use them.

Is he spying!

In The Hidden Power of Social Networks, the author asks a very important question " Does trust really matter?". I think it does. In the example that he gave about the health club. They found that the level of trust is high with the workers working together while the level little bit lower with the workers within the same departments that they work in deferent shifts and they never meet before. The study also shows that the trust level between people from other departments in very low. they gave an example of one worker that he feels embarrassed to go to ask " the others" and he also worry that his boss would know about that which might make her angry at him.

I think trust is very big issue. When I was working back home I noticed so many problems because of the lack of trust between employees. I found that people from the same nationality trust each other but they do not trust the other workers. I found that each workers from the same nationality form special hidden network where they discuss working matters and how to be sure that they don't get tricked by " the others". I was kind of lucky to get in these network and I had the chance to how they think. I found them always accusing each other of carelessness, laziness, causing problems with them, and mostly spying in them and giving their boss false information about them . This was big issue for me and for the company.

I noticed there was delay in the work because they were not cooperating with each other probably. A lot of time they came to me complaining about other workers. I found it odd that it had never happened that a guy from the same nationality complained about another guy from his country. It is always the other nationalities. I think if a problem between two guys from the same nationality occur they would solve between themselves as they trust each other. So it had never come to me.

Ignoring some of the complains was really great solution. One other good thing that we did that we forced them to work with each other as we intended to give a project to one group with multi nationalities workers. But the best thing that we did arranging the offices so we do not have more that two people from the same nationality in the same area. So they had to talk to the other people and then know them better by talking to them.

About the class: You Gatta take this class if you like blogging

The class is really fun. You get to know a lot of new ideas and use new tools like blogging, Google docs and other helpful websites. Also you have a chance to make presentation about anything you like if it is related to the course. We learned great information from other students who did presentations in this class.

The professor is really good and she has a lot of working experience so you can get benefits from her lectures as she talked from experiences. She is always there if you need a help and she is very clear and her lectures are very interesting. One of the best thing about this class is the guest speakers. I just love their presentations. She asked very professional and intelligent people to come and gave us a short presentation and they are just great.

The only thing that I do not like in the class that you have to participate a lot. It is not bad for most people but for my I just do not like to talk in classes.

I would recommend you to take this class and I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Take him down by a text message

It is very interesting to me how the Philippines managed to arrange peaceful demonstrations, that bring down a government, by using text messaging (SMART MOBS). This really shows how the technology can be really powerful if it is used in the right way. I think what they did was great and very intelligent. They gave great example if simple affected it solution.

On the other hand, Dean’s party lost the election cause they somehow did not manage to use the technology correctly ( NAKED CONVERSATION). Using blog was great idea but it lead to incorrect information which lead them to guarantee a victory that never happened. In this example and also the example of some websites indicated that visitors who use Firefox are 4% higher than those who use IE while the truth that much more people are using IE than Firefox.

In these to example, I found that technology could lead to success and in the same time could lead to failure. It always depends on the users and how well they use it.

Please DO NOT sue me

Last week lecture was really great. I really like the guest speaker and I agree with most of what he said.

He mentiond that a person can be sued for something that he wrote about a company or about a person. For me the whole sueing isuue is really wierd. Sometimes, I afraid one day someone might sue me for no good reason.

Since a lot of people are getting so much money from these cases, I believe this issue would never end. I recieved an email of one of my friends ( found it really funny) about some law cases. I would like to share some of them with you.

SOMEONE (I wont use the name so they wont sue me) of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000. by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were
understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little
toddler was her son.

A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay A LADY of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because she had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

I just Don't get it how come these people get all that money on these cases.

who reads my sms

In “Smart Mobs” a book by Howard Rheingold, I read about how the Filipinos managed to form a protest of ten thousands of people on one street by sending this small text message “Go 2EDA, Wear blck” which means go to Estada st and wear black. This message was sent between million of manila’s residents. They bring down the government by using networks and the technology.

Now, I really wonder if text messaging is that powerful and could really make different, do government or telephone companies filter these messages to prevent future act or to notify to authorities about protests or actions planned by some group by using this technology. Do some dictators in the world put some control in such messages? Do we really message freely or there are some consequences of sending some messages.

goOoal

I just love Upoc idea. I think it is great and excellent service. As I read in “SMART MOBS” the service helped a lot of people during the 9-11 attack by sending fast messages to subscribers.
In my country, soccer is very big thing. Last year. The soccer clubs their provided similar service. You subscribe to your team channel by sending a text message to a phone number and you pay them with your cell phone’s bill. They send to you the club news and live result and whatever the managements is planning to do. This service becomes very popular that almost every one who like soccer subscribe in one or more channels. The idea is to get the latest news and also to support your favorite club since the club will get a portion of the money.
I think this services would grow really fast since most people do not have that much time to watch TV or to read the news paper.

Hate to answer the phone

I know a lot of people just ignore the annoying phone rings until they hear a familiar voice in the voice machine then they run to pick the phone up. All this is because the ton of advertising calls that they receive every day. The main point is that the advertising agents and businesses will still make such calls even if most of the people wont respond to them or even if they got bothered by these calls. As Shel Israel mentioned in “Naked Conversations” that these companies do not care if 98% of the people hate their call. They just care about the 2% who respond to them.
I totally agree with Israel. This kind of advertising annoying and does not work very well. One thing jumped into my mind while I was reading in the book about this point. The book mentioned that people pay money by trying to prevent such calls. This means that other parties are also benefits from such call. People buy expensive phones that recognize these calls. People also subscribe to show ID service from the telephone company mostly to avoid answering these calls. Also the fact that these companies are paying a lot of money to the telephone company so they can make the call. Also there are some companies that sell telephone numbers to advertising agencies.
Unfortunately too many parties are benefits from these calls so that I think there would be no reason for these company to stop these calls.

Free software = Slow development

First, I really like the idea of LINUX that everyone can participate in developing the OS as mentioned in the reading. The only thing that I think really slowed the development of LINUX is because it is free. Although I like to have free things, I think the developments of software would not be as developed as today if it was free service. Actually, we can see that first we have a software that Microsoft for example wrote and made available to buy, then after that people write another software that does the something that the Microsoft’s one does.
I wish that the anyone improve LINUX get some benefits or something in return for his time and effort by selling the OS for small portion of money.
I would like to connect my thoughts with what Marc A. Smith said in Smart Mobs book about collective action dilemma page 32. He gave an example that not every one watches public television sends a check. I wish it goes this way in free software or open sources style that not everyone pays for the service but at least someone is helping by donating or advertising for their services in these programs. Still I think providing the service for small portion of money would really help the development of such projects.

Be Friendly.... Have more Friends

I think social networking depends in the person. If he wants to improve his social network he should be smart and friendly and he must keep in touch with people who the person might need in the future or who really have great social network. Also he has to be helpful and has some knowledge so other people would come for his help. I know back home (Saudi Arabia) knowing people in organization could grantee a job for you. Theu would help you but they might need your help in the future. I remember once I tried to help one of my friends to get a job. The person that I contacted told me if my friend will be helpful for him in the future or this guy would get the job and forget about me. So I think he wants to add my fiends to his social network so he can obtain his help at sometime. The bottom line is that people always expect something in return for their favors even if they are close friends or relatives.

Please mention if you agree or not.
Thank you for reading this blog

Saving money by less using Technology and evaluate your boss

I was really surprised by the fact that technology is not as helpful as people helping others finding information and learning how to get work done. A lot of money and also time could be saved by underutilize the technology is really surprising. This could help the IT department designing the database for example based in such fact.

The other thing which I really like in this reading is the idea of evaluating the managers' abilities to link people by the people whom the manager worked. This would improve the work and improve the network within the company and a lot of barriers would disappear between managers and employees.

First Blogg

I'm a university students who is taking social and networking class and I'm using this blog for acadimic reasons.

I Majid, on my honor, state that I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assignment and that all my work was completed in compliance with American University's Academic Integrity Code.