Enticing Technologies in Business

Lets get creative!

[wyattjanowiak]

Blog Post 8

After watching your video on implementation, there were a few things that came to mind when thinking about my organization that I have been consulting. As you stated in your video, having a good organization is different than having a good social organization. I thought that this quote reflected well on my organization because we are exactly that: a good organization, but not a good social organization. I think that my organization is very capable of being able to implement these new social media platforms and concepts, but what I am worried about is the organization actually implementing the suggestions that I have come up with. With my standing in the organization, I can encourage and push for more social media content to help grow, but I don’t think my organization wants to grow because we are such a selective group of only logistics management majors. I think that if I show them the benefits of being a good social organization, and having close partnerships with corporate companies, that this challenge ahead can be seen as a great opportunity for us and our partners.

Our organization is full of very reliable, innovative, and interactive students that want to succeed. The challenge is going to be able to show that social media should be a top priority of ours. Having the willingness to adapt to the social norms of social media can be a game changer for our organization, and it can benefit us and the partners that we have.

Overall, I believe that there are going to be social media challenges in all organizations, but to certain degrees. For my organization, the sky's the limit on what can be improved because we have no history of public social media platforms, and the fact that our student body is reliable, interactive, and innovative. Our biggest challenge will be actual DOING part of the implementation, but I am confident that it can be done with the help of our organization as a whole.

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 7 Blog Post

Effective content is not just writing down what's on your mind, or what you think sounds good. It’s being able to strategize around your audience’s core values and interests that you have set for them. For example, sharing current events that are related to the product/service you are promoting can engage the audience and influence them to want to be a part of the conversation. Maybe they want to ask the company’s opinion about the subject/event to get a better understanding of who that customer is supporting. Having these initiatives and setting content goals will help to keep your organization and the audience on the same page. Along with having goals and initiatives comes value to the audience. Being able to find what the audience values can play a huge role in the retention rate. For example, does our audience like polls? GIFs? Q&A? Figuring out what our audience values most can be a game changer to the social media presence that our company portrays, especially when there is so much content spread online. Along with value, online content marketing needs to be personal in some way to your audience. For example, making a post about logistics and supply chain, we can say “PSA: Supply Chain Gurus Needed”. This will grab the attention of your audience and make them feel wanted/valued.

Becoming a social organization requires the principles of effective content development and sharing. Social organizations entail a vision, strategy, and being able to adapt to the audience of the organization. In terms of effective content, a successful organization will learn from the audience and find what content is valuable to the audience through trial and error. As I mentioned earlier in the blog, figuring out if the audience likes polls, GIFs, and Q&A content is all a part of displaying effective content that will keep the audience engaged with the social media presence of an organization. It may take some time to figure out what is working best, but platforms like Hootsuite can help analyze how people are reacting to certain posts so that your organization can build from its success and failures. 

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 6 Blog Post

In Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald’s text “The Social Organization”, we dive into the effective principles of online community building with social media. With any successful business model comes an effective vision statement. This includes: understanding when community collaboration is appropriate, knowing when community collaboration is going to deliver more value, applying an understanding of an organization’s goals and culture, and crafting and distributing an organizational vision for community collaboration.

Having this vision statement that suits your company and its community will allow everyone to be on the same page. Collaboration is a key to innovation as stated in ``The Social Organization” when talking about NASA and MSFC while they were on the brink of losing their trust from the government. Allowing people in NASA and outside of NASA to collaborate on social media could save their business model, and reshape their short and long term goals in mind to continue their growth. The kicker of community collaboration is that organizations cannot solely rely on community collaboration to meet their business needs. If it is in need of a deep analysis, it should be an internal focus for the organization. An analysis can be spurred from the community if it is a common trend on social media. So, in other words, the community can help regardless if they want to or not, making social media such a powerful place for organizations to growth their strategy. 

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 5 Blog Post

When the internet came about in the late 20th century, it was not intended to share personal and sensitive data, rather it was used to share knowledge, opinions, ideas, and photos. This was good and dandy, but it was before the internet was looked at as a business. Once the internet was seen as a business for advertisement, everything changed. This is where the surveillance and data gathering came into play because this is where the money is being made, through companies buying advertisements and targeting potential customers of interest through pop-up ads that we see in our social media feed. What I think is crazy, is that us consumers get so annoyed with pop-up ads, yet we are so used to it now and most people don’t care if their personal information is shared. Maciej Ceglowski made a great example about Facebook users. Just because they know they are being surveil-lanced, doesn’t mean they are going to just stop using the app. As long as friends and family are still using it, that user is still going to use it because everything is so centralized on the web. Maciej also explains how we can still fix the online world and to not give up on our rights as internet users. With that being said, I agree, and I think that we need to have more educational classes about the internet in this day and age so that we can build a better understanding and future for the next generations to come.

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 4: Post 2

Algorithms are used by social media platforms that sift through big data to find what interests you in regards to news. This form of tactical data usage leads to bias news feeds that we see on Facebook and Twitter. In my opinion, I think that it is good in regards to what we like, such as hobbies, and sports entertainment. On the negative side, I don’t like algorithms when it deals with politics in the world. Algorithms blind us from what we don’t want to see based on our demographic and political posts that we choose to like. This is why I don’t even want to like or post anything political on Facebook or Twitter.

Advertising is just as bad as algorithms because social media platforms that are free, sell consumer data to advertisers so that the consumers have a tailored advertisement to our likings. As one of my professors once said, “We the consumers are the cattle, and the stockholders are the ranchers”, and I couldn’t agree more. The reason is because I know that social media platforms do not care about our well being; it is a business and they need to make money too, and they will do anything it takes to increase their market shares.

Exposure really ties both algorithms and advertising because it takes our cognitive bias that we have created in our minds, and it exemplifies our beliefs even more. I have seen this take it’s toll, especially when election time comes around. You see friends and family fueled by fake news that they want to believe is true, and it just becomes a political war ground. Social media is a big reason why I absolutely dislike politics because it tears our society apart in ways that cannot be repaired. I would like to add that it is not just social media that is doing this, it is news channels such as FOX and CNN doing the same thing. Why do platforms do this? Because they get more clicks and views the more outrageous a topic sounds. Is this informing us? No, all it does is confirm our bias to the side that we believe, and it also makes us choose a side, almost as if the middle ground is not worth the time.

I think the best way for businesses and individuals to be aware of these methods is to not indulge in ideas that are sensitive to the general public. When businesses do this, I think that it can be detrimental to their progress as a business unit, leading to a financial disaster if certain shareholders are triggered.

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 4: Post 1

I think there are many important qualities to have as a social media consultant. One of the most important qualities is being able to form long-term and short-term strategies that consist of customer objectives. These strategies will lead you to better understand your customers and gain more recognition for what you are posting on social media. Another quality that a social media consultant should have is time management. In almost anything that we do in a job, we need to be able meet deadlines. To do this, consultants need to set time goals for each step of the process while working with a business. Social media consultants should also be able to think outside the box. If you are hired to be a consultant, it is because they don’t have the employees to do it, or they have exhausted all of their internal resources and are seeing no headway in their social media presence.

In terms of social media consulting, having a strategy will put myself in position to really understand the market and the consumers of the my business. First and for most, I have to be open to different views and opinions that I will throw at myself. As a consultant, I have to figure of what the customer likes and dislikes about the business. I think that addressing the market first is key before we even get into the social media aspect of the business. After we have found our customer objectives, we can then dive into the my social media platform. In terms of professionalism, I really only use LinkedIn because I am not a huge fan of social media. The reason I use LinkedIn is for potential future employers to see me, and see what I have done for work experience. I want to be recognized by big and small companies that have a great working atmosphere. I also use it to stay connected to past colleagues, friends, and students I have gone to school with to see what they are doing and how they are succeeding. Some things that I could work on better is posting more to my LinkedIn. Posting to my LinkedIn would further my reach when people “like” my post. Other users that I am not connected with will see the “like”, and potentially connect with me.

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 3 Blog Post

Big data and algorithms are such powerful tools because they are tracking more than just what you are doing, they help social media developers to be one step ahead of what you are doing or even thinking. An example of algorithm use is the Google search bar. When you search something on Google, before you even finish it, it is giving you options that are tailored to your likings and your recent searches. When I saw this in the documentary, it really opened my eyes to how much the internet has truly molded itself into our daily lives and how we function as individuals. I think the app TikTok, for instance, listens to what we talk about through our mobile phones because whenever we are talking about a certain event, thing, or trend, TikTok has that at the top of our “For Your Page” (FYP), and I realize that it isn’t a coincidence that it’s at the top. It's the fact that there are powerful tools that social media platforms use that us consumers don’t even know about.

There are so many dangers that we need to be aware of because social media truly is a dark place that can cause anxiety, stress, and depression. For example, if somebody were to post a picture of themself on social media, they want to think that people are liking the picture because they think they look “pretty”, “cute”, or “handsome”. When they are not getting as many likes as they thought they would have, that individual will get anxious, leading to self-image problems. I’m not saying that everyone is like this, I just believe that this is a big concern with young individuals between the ages of 12-18. Another danger to these platforms, as mentioned in the Netflix documentary, is that “Fake news spreads six times faster than real news”. To me, this is not a huge surprise because I have seen my fair-share of fake news and I am able to know if it is fake or not most of the time. But, we think about younger individuals that are new to social media and they don’t have this pre-known knowledge of fake news that can be detrimental to the way we think.

I think that social media is not something that can be changed for the better, rather we just have to learn how to deal with it in a professional manner and learn from past mistakes of users before us. This class, BIS 315, is teaching me even more about the effects that social media can have on my future, but it is also teaching me how to use different platforms that can help build my social media image in a safe and professional way.

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 2 Blog Post #2

I based my social media experiment around my daily work and school life. I decided to not to go on my phone from the hours of 12 AM to 3 PM so that I could better focus on work, class and homework. I allotted myself 15 minutes at 3PM, then from 3:15PM to 6:15PM I didn’t go on my phone, and then 15 minutes to go on my phone. For the last lapse I didn’t go on my phone again until 10PM before I went to bed and turned my phone off completely at 10:15. Doing this reduced my screen time to just 45 minutes a day compared to 6 hours of screen time that I had earlier in the week. 

I found it very hard in the morning not to go on my phone and check my Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, but also at the same time, it was kind of relieving knowing that I didn’t have to worry about something, because I would just write everything that I needed to do for the day in my planner. I also struggled when I was bored at work, for I usually like to go on Instagram and just scroll through feed to kill time. Instead, I decided to to clean up the office and work on more of my homework to pass the time. Not going on my phone most of the day made me feel good, like I was being so much more efficient with my time. I also realized how we truly are so consumed in our phones without even knowing it sometimes. I look at my phone because it is such a sub-conscious process that most people my age do.

When the experiment came to a close, I realized I did not want to do that again. I don’t like the idea of using “time slots” for phone use. I think that I need to just learn from this experiment, and make some less dramatic changes in my daily life, such as using the do not disturb feature on my phone so its not going off every 5 minutes while I’m working and doing my homework.

[wyattjanowiak]

Week 2 Blog Post #1

I think that social media’s influence in my daily life is both beneficial and and negative. Beneficially, I think that having information and factual content at our finger tips is huge to the learning that we have today. At the same time it can be negative. I mean, you look at school today, almost all of it is online now, leaving us even more vulnerable to going on social media apps while in class such as Snapchat, Twitter, texting, etc. It’s not helping us learn, and I myself, am guilty of doing this especially when a professor has a super boring, and bland lecture that they don’t even care about themself. I have found online schooling to increase the chances of leaving us students the opportunity to indulge in social media even more now with the online format. Saying this, I have learned through my past mistakes that I can not continue to go the route of not paying attention. I have learned through online schooling that I need to make sure my phone is out of reaching distance for me so that I can focus on school, and that has not been easy, but it can be done through self discipline. To be honest, I would say that I am on the low spectrum of social media use. When it comes to Snapchat and posting “Stories” I like to usually keep my personal life to myself rather than share it with all of my “friends” on Snapchat.

I have had times where I haven’t been able to access to the internet at some of my construction jobs where my phone is not on me, in fear that i might smash it or drop it. When I first started doing this at my first construction job, I would be anxious thinking that I was going to miss out on something happening, or if my friends were planning something for the night and I would miss out. As the time went on in my construction job, I began to find myself not worrying about my phone, and it made my job feel much easier, even though it wasn’t physically (LOL)!

To be more intentional about my technology, I think I should start utilizing the Do Not Disturb feature on my phone more. For instance, when I am in class, about to go to sleep, or at work, I don’t need to be on my phone, unless it is something urgent for family and friends. using the do not disturb feature would definitely lead to more intentional technology use. I could take some notes from my Dad in this matter, for he is not super technological, and he leaves his phone on the charger in the kitchen every night!

[wyattjanowiak]

Week One Blog Post

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog! My name is Wyatt Janowiak and I am a senior at Central Michigan University majoring in marketing and logistics. I was born and raised in a small town by the name of Deckerville which is in the thumb of MichiganI have never made a blog before, but I am excited to see where this leads, so please bear with me! In regards to my career aspirations, I hope to work in supply chain for Nike in the next 15 years. this has been a dream of mine since I signed my major sophomore year of college. I have had some corporate background now that I have completed a distribution co-op with Kimberly-Clark, and I absolutely loved it and the people that I worked with. In my blog, I hope to find a connection with all the other students in this class and learn more about social medias impact on business.

A business that I think has done an exemplary job of utilizing social media is Barstool Sports (https://www.barstoolsports.com/). This company has managed to turn a Boston sports and betting newspaper company into a nationwide business that now has their own sports betting book, journalists, bloggers, along with their trendy clothing line that is practically on every social media platform.