Filed under: Assignment
According to a new study from the University of Melbourne, by Dr. Brent Coker, I’m currently increasing my productivity by up to 9%. How so you ask? Well, I’m at Salon Voda on South Lake Union working as a receptionist and also surfing the web in between phone calls, cleaning, and other miscellaneous duties. Yes, apparently by surfing the web I am also increasing my overall productivity (I’ve definitely got to run this by my boss).
Allowing myself to engage in fun internet surfing, in reasonable amounts, in between tasks provides my brain with an opportunity to reset itself. People benefit from getting rewards after completing mini-tasks. (However, those who show signs of internet addiction may end up with a reduction in overall productivity). Being able to balance personal life and work is important.
A professional worker is not just somebody who puts in eight straight hours of work, five days a week, but instead someone who puts work into a project and makes sure everything gets done with the highest quality. Managers need to trust that their employees will get the job done and the final result should show the devotion or lack there of. When employees are treated and respected as a professional, then they are more likely to be happy, productive, and loyal.
Filed under: project
You are what you eat, so you might as well eat something scrumptious! Alayna Lim and I have set up our wordpress account with the title of, “OH MY NOM”. ”Nom”, as described by urban dictionary, is a sound made when discussing food of extreme deliciousness. Our goal is to blog about all things cupcakes and tell you everything you ever needed to know about cupcakes based off our own experiences and findings. It’s a blog to explore recipes, decorating, cupcakeries, fun merchandise and even photography. Anyone with an interest in sweet treats and baking will love the tasty content we post to the site.
We plan on posting an entry at least once daily resulting in approximately 40 entries by finals. We have broken our entries into categories: entries on cupcake reviews, entries on cupcake recipes/creations, entries on cupcake tools, entries on cupcake merchandise, entries on shop tours/interviews, entries on breakfast, diet, vegan, pop-culture, and five-minute cupcakes. We also plan on hosting a poll on our blog asking reader’s opinions and will include updates corresponding with Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube accounts.
If we are able to continually come up with great content and provide structure for our blog I believe it will be a great success. We want our blog to be as interactive as possible with lots of photos and step-by-step instructions for fun recipes. Our greatest measure of success is whether we are able to visit a large number of cupcakeries in the Seattle area and publish a write-up for the newspaper. That would truly be sweet.
Filed under: Assignment
The one thing I really admire about the Cupcakes take the cake blog is their devotion to cupcakes alone and the fact that the names behind the blog are very clear. The blog has a more personal appeal because it includes names and pictures to the creators claiming to just be dire hard cupcake fans. Not only do they include pictures of a wide variety of uniquely decorated cupcakes but they also talk about new store openings, charity events and all things out of the box that still involve cupcakes. However, it doesn’t appear that they actually craft any of their own cupcakes but instead just blog about others.
The Cupcake Bake Shop provides hundreds of fun recipes with a user-friendly step-by-step process for readers to easily create the unique flavors and designs. They list exact ingredients for all the flavors as well as beautiful pictures for the steps. It seems like the blog is really fun to browse but I wouldnt necessary use it to track down a recipe per say (but maybe i’d stumble across a fun one). The blog is fun but I wish it included more than just recipes and long how-to lists.
Cake Spy’s blog includes links to fun recipes, an online shop with cute cupcake merchandise, a bakery travel guide, and baked goods stories. The blog includes all types of baked goods and is not just limited to cupcakes. However, with our cupcake blog we would strictly focus on highlighting cupcakes and venturing out to different wheat free options, vegan options, ect. Cakespy also utilizes different forms of digital media with links to their own facebook fan page, twitter account and flickr account.
We have mentioned in class the relaxed nature of Weblogs which is echoed throughout Rebecca Blood’s Weblog Handbook. Not only do Weblog authors feel less inclined to adopt a code of ethics but often times their uncensored writing styles can become one of their greatest downfalls. Although I scope the web with the knowledge that blogs are written by individuals with very biased opinions and minimal verification, I do seek out news and expect to find some form of validity within posts. Blood mentions that individuals should only publish facts that you believe to be true and if you are unsure, say so. The easy-going nature of blog writing makes this extremely easy for authors to state any speculation and would provide readers with expected standards. Providing links for further information on a subject also entitles readers to prove or disapprove your statements and can allow the blog author to later correct any aspect of misinformation.
The 10 Big Myths about copyright was all pretty new information to me. Although I understood the basics of copyright laws I myself had believed certain myths that I now know to be untrue. The fact that copyright is still violated even when no money is being gained or charged was news to me! I had always had the understanding that profit played a large role in determining whether an individual should be in violation of copyright. However, the article states that this mistake is mostly considered technical and shouldn’t result in legal action.
What are some of the advantages for Weblogs when ignoring ethics?
Should Weblogs uphold the same ethical standards as journalists or should they exists as their own entity with their own standards?
Filed under: Discussion Leader | Tags: Business tool, Social Networking, Twitter
Jennifer Van Grove wrote an excellent post on “40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them” at Mashable. Her list highlights not only a long list of companies, or “early birds” in the marketing sense, that have adapted to new social media but also provides reasons to why the companies have chosen to utilize Twitter. As Twitter grows, it will increasingly become a place where companies build brands, do research, send information to customers, conduct e-commerce and create communities for their users. There are many different ways for companies to use Twitter and I chose three different companies who are each using microblogging in unique and different ways.
Many big businesses are using Twitter as a marketing tool and as a way to connect to customers. Starbucks is among the early adopters of social media as an effective campaign platform.
We exist in a system that is supported by the camaraderie and sharing of others. Therefore, Twitter’s free easy to use interface, ability to reach a vast audience and the willingness for individuals to engage in conversation make it a great resource for many non-profit organizations. Recently, both campaigns #beatcancer and million dollar @drew have received a lot of buzz and have proven successful.
The political use of Twitter can be a powerful force for change and for helping the government keep their pulse on the American public. Therefore I chose to highlight president Barack Obama’s recent use of twitter for health care reform.
Below is the powerpoint presentation I put together containing basic information.
The biggest obstacle Alayna and I face when creating and brainstorming ideas for our projects lies in our ability to differentiate ourselves from other bloggers who have also taken on the cupcake craze. We’ve thought a lot about this and so far have come up with a few different ideas that will make our blogs unique to us alone. Firstly, not only will we visit cupcake places around the area but we are also going to try and recreate a lot of the cupcakes we have using our own recipes and supplies. We will provide pictures which we will take ourselves and also include recipes and fun hints for viewers. Another idea is to try and get interviews and behind the scene footage at some of our favorite cupcake places to give a better idea of the entire cupcakery!
We will also blog about all things relating to cupcakes whether we find certain articles, songs, videos, merchandise, ect. In order to make the blog interactive we will allow viewers to submit their own photos of cupcakes they have made with the opportunity to share recipes as well! Lastly, we plan on formulating some surveys based around the cupcakes we encounter and hope to engage the class! We also went ahead and purchased some supplies to start off the cupcake baking frenzy, created our blog space, and created a corresponding flickr and twitter account as well. More in store for next week!
Filed under: Assignment | Tags: Congress, Obama, Organizing for America, Twitter
By use of microblogging, President Barack Obama and collegues were able to rally 315,000 people to call into Congress to voice their support of health care reform in just one single day. Obama also held a live webcast to answer questions for thousands of supporters. By viewing the thread of Obama’s recent tweets you can see that the grassroots group, Organizing for America, initially set a goal of 100,000 calls to Congress which was tripled by the end of the day. This call to action proves how Obama was able to reach thousands of voters, even some who don’t generally engage in the political progress. Read more about the nationwide event “Time to Deliver on Healthcare Reform” here.
Follow Barack Obama on Twitter
Filed under: project | Tags: Alayna Lim, Cupcake Royale, Cupcakeries, Cupcakes, Trophy, Twitter
Cupcakes have been able to defy the recession. How so you ask? Well besides their inherent edible goodness, the bakers and brains behind these beauties market like no other! Many Cupcakeries offer t-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs and other fun accessories. Not to mention there’s a cupcake for about any holiday, movie release, season, hobby, or flavor imaginable! But what has really grasped my attention is two local Cupcakeries (Trophy & Cupcake Royale) using Twitter to reach out to their clientele! Clearly it works. I follow Trophy and every day when I log on I’m linked into descriptive tweets with accompanying photos of different cupcakes they offer (which is usually followed by a trip to U-Village to try out the goodies myself). Cupcake Royale will also tweet about random “Happy Hour” prices as well.
My mission, as well as Alayna Lim’s mission, is to go from Cupcakery to Cupcakery trying out different stores and flavors and creating a blog dedicated to our findings! We also want to try some at home recipes and figure out the ins and outs to this new cupcake frenzy hitting cities everywhere! I think it will also be interesting to highlight how different stores have utilized different online tools (twitter, facebook, blogs) for promotion purposes. So, essentially we will be creating a “Cupcake Club” blog with weekly or bi-weekly (or however many cupcakes we decide to devour in one week) posts chalk full of wholesome goodness. We know we aren’t the only cupcake fans out there!
I’ve obviously gotten really attached and excited about this whole cupcake blog idea, but if for some reason it falls through then I was considering some type of personal portfolio website or an essay highlighting the use of online tools for political promotion (mainly the 2008 presidential election and Obama’s campaign). Really not as exciting, I know.
If one things for certain its that the blogging world is one large, online conversation. As better stated in the O’Reilly article, “If the Web is a a content warehouse, the blogging world is a conversation — and RSS may be the best way to follow the conversation.” When individuals subscribe to different blogs they are essentially allowing the information to come to them rather then going out and searching the web. Instead, the type of information received by the individual is completely controlled and hence, filtered. Not only can the web and news sources be more complete and varied than traditional media but they also allow readers to contribute. Anyone with a computer and internet connection could make the news in the sense that we don’t merely act as consumers but instead have the ability to both read and write the news. The Cluetrain Manifesto further stresses this idea by insisting that, “The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.”
Although there are skeptics that are worried about the content found and spread across the web, individuals who are aware of the fast growing digital communication world should have a filter all their own and to know to take certain sites such as Wikipedia with a grain of salt. If we are all clear that this information is being uploaded by random web users than we ought to remember that when we try and make a claim. Moreover, individuals can seek out highly credited sites for further assurance and legitimacy.
Just as web users create more conversation, the blogosphere has allowed both political leaders and celebrities to communicate with the public using the web space. I’ve heard quite a few claims from individuals who believe that Obama would have not won the presidency without the use of the internet. By using interactive Web 2.0 tools, Mr. Obama’s campaign changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents.
- In what ways did the use of the internet, blogging specifically, impact the 2008 presidential election?
- How could internet radio (with music) become fair to both the consumers and entertainment industry in the future? (if even possible)
I’ve read time and time again that the minimalist blog proves to be the most successful. Too many widgets, ads, pictures or links can be overwhelming to readers and most individuals will not want to take the additional time learning how to navigate a specific blog. The minimalist blog instead provides mainly “white space” with clearly defined links and navigation. I mostly enjoyed Liz Lantz blog theme, layout and navigation. Liz’s obviously has the blogosphere figured out. Not only does she include a personalized picture as well as an about me section but she has created a catchy name for herself (Media Bug) and provides a description for why she is blogging in the first place. My favorite feature of Liz’s blog is that her page only displays a preview of the post allowing the reader to click to read more information or to easily scroll through to the next blog post. Moreover, the column on the right gives readers the option of searching the archives or viewing recent posts. Not only is this blog easy to navigate but visually it is very pleasing as well.
Ironically, Keala and I have the same blog theme! I enjoy this theme because of the simplicity as well as the white background with accompanying black font. However, it has been brought to my attention that the font is a bit difficult to read because of its small size. Six Revisions provides “10 Important Traits of a Great Blog Design” and lists “Blog Readability” as the most important element to any blog design. Not only do font colors and backgrounds play a significant role in readability but the article stresses the importance of large, readable font which can easily be changed using the web browser (we gotta get on this!).
I really like the large picture banner and soft blue color of Kyle’s blog as well as the user-friendly layout. The theme comes with a right hand side bar that should really be utilized! In this space Kyle can provide easier navigation for readers as well as personalized touches. While content is a crucial aspect to any successful blog, its good to add a little style and flare as well. Although you don’t want to risk over-doing it, having additional tools and links on your site give readers more options other than scrolling through the blog’s archive. I would also recommend working on coming up with creative blog titles that lure readers in! This article on “Blog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes” claims that most individuals only read the first three or four words of a headline when making the decision to read further.
Lizeth did a great job with catchy titles and easy navigation by including a categorgies section as well as a monthly archive. However, this wordpress theme was the least visually pleasing to me. Although I enjoy the simplicity I think its lacking in personalization. Perhaps adding a simple picture along the side or choosing a theme that has a picture header at the top may be more appealing. The header is the first thing readers see when they visit the site and the “5 Ogilvy Tips for Blog Design” state that visual should come before text in order to draw the eye of the reader and further lure them into the text below.
