The Next 5 Months

The next 5 months promise to be busy. I have a research project to manage, comprehensive exams to study for, my final semester to finish, a wedding to plan and a job hunt to boot. And of course a blog to update. Out of that list I can currently finish at least one of those now and so here I am. Today I'll talk a little bit about the research I am hoping to finish in the next few months.

My primary interest is in how people are using technology. I've been a techie all my life since my father first let me log onto his old Prodigy account. I am fortunate to have grown up with the Internet and see the way it has changed the way people interact and I've been drawn back time and again to thinking about just HOW are we talking differently now? What's new? What no longer works? What HASN'T changed?

Of course lacking funding or grant money I can only take a narrow look but hopefully one that is significant all the same. I'm hoping to get some data on how people are using electronic documents versus paper hard-copy. The idea is to see whether messages are interpreted differently when we read them on the computer screen. Are we more likely to remember e-text? More likely to be persuaded? Current research has shown people prefer hard-copy for things like taking tests or reading a book but few (that I've seen at least) look beyond what people think of these media and examine how they are impacted.

So, blogosphere, give me your Qual data. What do you like in your electronic documents? What do you like about physical copies? Those of you with Kindles and Nooks, how do you like them?

The Year We Made Contact

Happy 2010 blogosphere. I'd like to take this chance to look back at some of my favorite GiT posts from 2009...oh right there's only three. I hope everyone's holidays were most excellent. My own were spent eating entirely too much, drinking entirely too little, and spending just the right amount of time with my two families.

To my continuing shame I do not yet have a smart phone. I don't care for AT&T's service but even if I did both an iPhone and a Droid are beyond my current means to afford. The real irony of going to grad school to study how people use technology is that I can't afford to use any of my own. Google recently announced a phone of their own and maybe by the time its available through Verizon I'll be able to afford it.

One (of many) interesting things Faris mentioned when he so kindly answered my questions is that he uses his blog for personal thoughts and Twitter to share links. That got me thinking about what I use my own social outlets for. There's a Communication theory called Uses and Gratifications which claims we choose what media to use based on how it best fulfills out needs which seems to apply here. My typical divide seems to be Facebook for personal information, Twitter to share interesting links, and this blog to faff about with whatever is on my mind. I notice that a number of my friends will simply cross post their statuses to both Facebook and Twitter. So I wonder, How do you, gentle readers (all three of you), use your various social nets?

Non IRB Approved Qual Research - Faris Yakob TIGS

Amazing what can happen when you simply ask, responses to my extremely non IRB approved qualitative research have begun to come in. First up is Faris Yakob(@faris) of Talent Imitates, Genius Steals. Faris is the EVP Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson New York and has kindly agreed to answer my questions about how to be a better media blogger.

Guru In Training(I just realized my blog acronym is GiT): Before making a blog post it helps to have something to write about. So, how do you find your news? What are your favorite sources of information both online and off?

Talent Imitates, Genius Steals:I used to scan through hundreds of RSS feeds everyday. Now I just let Twitter tell me what I need to know. That said, I very rarely post anything on TIGS that I have discovered via Twitter - everyone already knows. Other things I like are books. Reading is for awesome people. Also people send me stuff all the time - sometimes bad [terrible for IMMMEIDATE RELEASE PR legacy missives from another era] sometimes awesome [excellent thoughtful polite personal emails about stuff I'm actually into]. Plus I read Wired and Fast Company, but again I rarely post from them.

GiT: There's only so much content you can squeeze into an entry. How do you decide which piece of news or personal experience makes the cut as being"blog-worthy?"

TIGS: To me it's pretty simple - I only post stuff on TIGS if I feel I have something original to contribute. I share via twitter and Tumblr - TIGS is for thinking.

GiT: Some people use blogs as personal journals, some as news sources, others as hubs for discussion. What role do you see your blog as having? Do you have a specific audience in mind as you write?

TIGS: As I mention above TIGS has a specific role - it's where I do my thinking and ask the audience to test it out. I think over the years I have begun to understand the audience, but it's not specific - I don't just write for the advertising industry, for example, rather anyone interested in culture, media, communications, technology and that.

GiT: Considering the name and goal of this blog: do you have any advice to give to someone aspiring to be media/tech savvy?

TIGS: Read a lot. Remember that if you didn't learn something today, you are behind. And if you don't love media and tech, then don't bother.

GiT: And finally, how did you decide on the name for your blog?

TIGS: Talent imitates, Genius Steals started out as something cool to put at the top of my blog and became the expression which distills my belief in recombinant culture - more on that here:

http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2008/11/interesting-a-history-of-recombinant-culture.html

GiT: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer!

Scientific Methods

Part of my job as a TA for a social science course is turning complex scientific jargon into something understandable to new undergraduates. Academic speech might as well be a whole new language. For all that parsimony is valued in academic writing, journal article seem to enjoy using long words and complex language (like parsimony, those highfalutin bastards.)* So if I were to try to explain a theory I'd break it down into it's components while also giving examples of how it is applied. Perhaps one in ten of those students might become TAs themselves one day and then pass along theory to the next generation. Its like the Circle of Life with more stat tests and fewer giraffes.

But as is so often the case things get more muddled in the world outside the tower. How do you learn about the newest technologies? Who tells you what marketing tools are best? How, in short, do you become an authority when there's no academic journals to digest the information at you?

One of my goals for this blog is to educate myself about the field of work I'll soon be entering. One of my goals is also to NOT just rehash old news and AP bulletins. So I'm going to engage in a little qualitative research and ask the blogging and podcasting pros how THEY do it. Where do they get their news? How do they decide what to blog about? Interesting AND educational. So follow along and lets see where this takes us. And if anyone has suggested bloggers to ask feel free to leave a comment.


*It means brevity.

Streams of Data and Conciousness

Its an interesting phenomenon that as the net is getting exponentially bigger, it is also becoming more personal. Everyone has their own little corner of the net to call their own these days whether it be a Facebook page, twitter feed, or blog-roll. Some of us technophiles have all three and more. Lots of theories exist that try to explain why we use these things but most of them boil down to us wanting wanting to be in charge and be thought of well. I suspect that is why blogs are so popular.

It took me forever to start this blog and even longer to start writing in it because I didn't really feel like what I had to say was any more important than anybody else. Entirely too many years in academia have said that your personal opinions don't matter if they aren't backed up by someone else who has already been published in standard APA citation. I'd like to extend my thanks to my good friend Mike for making me realize that all the scholarly giants, media-savvy marketers, and cults of personality all had to start writing somewhere.

Subsequent posts will be filled with more crunchy info and I will try my best to not end up like so many other abandoned blogs out there in the intertubes. I hope to use this blog as way to sound off on what I think and do, a time honored blogger tradition. But I also hope to use the motivation to write something substantial as a way to help educate myself more on media, technology, marketing, entertainment, and all the other 0's and 1's that make up popular culture.