Is Social Gaming an Ecosystem of Hell?

Social games are online games played on social networks like Facebook or MySpace. They are not the same as video games played on XBOX or Playstation 3 console (Axon). Examples of social games include Farmville, Mafia Wars, Bejeweled Blitz, and Tetris. Unlike video games which belong to a “hits-driven business”, social games are designed for more durability (Terdiman). That means even after the game is released for public play, the innovation process continues to iterate and new features are added with time.

An example is Zynga’s Farmville, a social game played on Facebook, which is estimated to have about 83 million monthly active users (Terdiman). Zynga’s marketing strategy is to continue to introduce new games and new features of existing games to engage its existing players (Terdiman). Similarly, PopCap Games is making big money through its popular game Bejeweled Blitz, with the game downloads, the Blitz coins virtual currency, the virtual goods transactions, and the Facebook version (Mack).

A 2010 survey conducted by PopCap Games found that there are approximately one hundred million people playing social games today (Axon). It also claimed that Facebook is the most popular social network site for online gamers (Axon).

Some specific statistics reported include:

• Surprising, the average social game player is a 43-old female.


• 55% of social gamers are female.


• Women, rather than men, tend to play multiple times a day.


• 68% of women prefer to play with people they know whereas only 56% of men indicate such preference.


• 41% of men are likely to play with strangers while only 33% of women would do the same.


• More than 50% of gamers started playing a game based on a friend’s recommendation, or they learned from Facebook’s news feed that their friend is playing that game.

With the growing popularity and prosperity in the social game sphere, industry experts are expressing concerns for the harm to consumers and legitimate businesses caused by the increase in scams by game companies and the inadequate regulatory actions taken by platforms such as Facebook and MySpace to discourage such behaviors. According to Andrew Trader of Zynga, about a third of the company’s total revenue comes from advertisers providing memberships and subscriptions (magazine, CD, and mobile services, etc.) (Arrington2). Now guess where the scam money comes from.

Many experts perceived social gaming companies as unethical because they make money out of scamming the users. The scam started off by getting the users to pay cash for in-game currency used to improve their scores or enhance their gaming experience. Some consumers paid. For others who refuse to pay cash, they are offered them in-game currency when they entertain lead gen-type offers (Arrington). These offers are scams to fool both the consumers and the legitimate advertisers. Some examples of scams include Tattoo Media (mobile scams) and Video Professor (membership and subscription scams). The required payments and commitments are usually written in fine prints or unnoticeable, thus causing users to accept the offer without knowledge of the scam (Arrington).

The consumers are hurt because they get tricked into these lead-gen scams and ended up paying more money than they would have paid in cash to begin with. The advertisers are hurt because some users signed up for free trial just to get the in-game currency, and then they cancelled their memberships. So the legitimate advertisers (like Netflix and Blockbuster) saw lower quality in advertising. They left and were replaced by the less decent ones (like Tattoo and Video Professor). Social network sites like Facebook and MySpace are slow to set rules to stop these scams and they are also not enthusiastic to enforce these rules because cutting off the scams means reduction of significant amount of revenue coming from advertisements by gaming companies (Arrington).

This scenario presents social gaming to be similar to an ecosystem of hell. People get scammed and paid more money. The money gets rolled back into Facebook in advertisements, which generated more users. This creates more businesses and more scams for the gaming company. They advertize more and scam more, and the process repeats in cycles of an unethical mess (Arrington).

Do you think that someday the consumers would become so smart that they would give up their addiction to social games and stop themselves from being scammed?

Blog Comments:
Baribeau, Tami. "FarmVille Podcast Highlights - April 16th, 2010 - Games.com - The Blog." Games.com - The Blog. 17 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Apr. 2010.

Orland, Kyle. "Farmville Could Be Coming to Smartphones, IPad and SMS - Games.com - The Blog." Games.com - The Blog. 19 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Apr. 2010.


Sources:
Arrington, Michael. "Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell - Washingtonpost.com." Washingtonpost.com - Nation, World, Technology and Washington Area News and Headlines. 31 Nov. 2009. Web. 21 Apr. 2010.

Arrington2, Michael. "Scamville: Zynga Says 1/3 Of Revenue Comes From Lead Gen And Other Offers." TechCrunch. Nov. 2009. Web. 20 Apr. 2010. .

Axon, Samuel. "Who's Playing Social Games? [STATS]." Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide. 17 Feb. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2010.

Mack, Christopher. "For 25th Anniversary, Tetris Gets Social Via Facebook." Inside Social Games - Tracking Innovation at the Convergence of Games and Social Platforms. 12 Apr. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2010.

Mack2, Christopher. "Bejeweled Blitz Gets a Boost, a Price Tag, and Facebook Connect." Inside Social Games - Tracking Innovation at the Convergence of Games and Social Platforms. 8 Apr. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2010.

Terdiman, Daniel. "Why Zynga Ticks off the Games Industry | Geek Gestalt - CNET News." Technology News - CNET News. 12 Apr. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2010.

Growing the Magic Bean of Social Media Metrics

To gain competitive edge in the online social realm, companies adopt social media as part of their marketing mix. Social media analytics is available to assist companies learn from what consumers are saying online about their brand, products and competitors. Thus they can take proper actions to grow customer relationships and improve bottom line. Companies want to integrate social media data across the organization in business areas such as marketing and brand management, customer service, market research, and corporate communications. Thus they want to be able to measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media.

Today, there are ongoing debates about the ROI of social media, not only on how to measure ROI of social media, but also on whether ROI can be measured in the first place. Here are the two sides of the argument:

• Some people feel that it is impossible to measure ROI because social media represents the value of consumer conversations and relationship building on the web (which is intangible). Because we cannot measure the impact of a conversation or relationship between two people, it would be difficult to measure social media.

• Other people feel that social media insights are only valuable if they can be converted to data. This way, management can base their marketing strategy and decision on concrete statistic-based metrics.

To effectively measure the ROI of social media, a company must first define its business goals, and assign the right attributes for measurement. There are new attributes for social media such as authority, interaction, velocity, attention, sentiment, and actions. The company will have to benchmark its programs according to established goals and assigned attributes. Measurements of ROI can be both qualitative and qualitative in nature.

Qualitative data includes information such as corporation reputation, conversations or customer relationships. In order to measure how well a company is performing in these areas, it needs to:

• Determine specific area(s) it wants to measure (e.g. corporate reputation)

• Come up with the right benchmark (ask questions such as what consumers are saying about the quality of our product and service?)

• Take appropriate actions to achieve success (ask questions such as are we getting higher marks on how consumers rank our product and service?)

Quantitative data includes metrics such as network traffic, amount of sales, or SEO ranking. To measure the performance in these areas, a company needs to:

• Determine which metrics it wants to collect

• Use the right tools to capture the data (there are free tools available like AidRSS, Google Analytics, Feedburner, and Xinu)

• Analyze the data and make changes for improvement

According to Jason Fall, it is a waste of time to try to measure ROI in social media because we can never quantify human interactions and conversations. Katie Delahaye Paine claimed that the only way to measure is ROI is to assess whether we are getting what we want from the conversation.

The real question is: Is building customer relationship really that different between online and the traditional setting? It seems like traditional marketing measures success in terms of how many leads, proposals, presentations, and contracts are generated over a set period of time. Won't it be the same for online marketing as well?

Sources:

Falls, Jason. "What Is The ROI For Social Media?" Social Media Explorer. 28 Oct. 2008. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

"Social Media FAQ #3: How Do I Measure ROI? « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing." Web Strategy By Jeremiah Owyang: Web Marketing, Social Media. 26 Feb. 2008. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Spataro, Mike. "Understanding Social Media ROI." VisInsights. 29 Oct. 2008. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Uhrmacher, Aaron. "How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business." Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide. 31 July 2008. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Predictions on Social Media Trends

With the growing popularity of social media, it is conceivable that social networking sites will become more sophisticated, more niche specific, and more integrated. Specifically, some predicted social media trends are listed as follows:

• More televisions will be available through the Internet
  
  As evident in the recent March Madness NCAA Men Basketball Tournament, NCAA and CBS jointly announced the viewing of the games through the NCAA website. Other available sites include Hulu, Boxee, Apple TV and Netflix.


• More companies will establish and enforce a social media policy
  
  In order to protect itself from reduced productivity and increased security risks, a company will have to define specific policies and procedures for governing its employees on the use of social media.
  
• Social media will become more exclusive and less general
  
  New social media will be less general and more niche-based, targeting specific group of audience or special interest groups (sports, jobs, music, etc). User behavior will change as more people will look for quality and efficiency rather than quantity.


• Businesses will leverage social networking tools to satisfy more business areas
  
  Besides marketing and advertising online, companies will use social media for customer support, recruiting and collaborating.
  
• Companies will rely more on web analytics for performance measurements
  
  Besides using web analytics to measure the effectiveness of its websites, business will also use such information to determine how well its staff (or which staff particularly) is supporting its customers and what competitive advantages it has over its competitors. Rating on websites by customers will also be more common.


• Mobile technology will be more integrated with social media
  
  Individuals will be relying on their mobile phones to connect to the web, and perform the internet functions via their mobile devices. The use of traditional emails as communication will become obsolete.


• More content aggregation in social media to improve efficiency
  
  Search engines will return more content and less links, thus reducing the time in locating information. An example is the partnering of Yahoo and Twitter to deliver Yahoo’s content into Twitter’s stream.

With these growing trends in social media, the questions are (1) Will the increased in demand of TV via Internet cause a more serious bandwidth issue? (2) Will the investment cost in social media grow exponentially due to demand for high-power equipment and the need for more secured information?

Sources:
Social Media Band Wagon Image.

Armano, David. "Six Social Media Trends for 2010 - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review." Business Management Ideas - Harvard Business Review Blogs. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Cashmore, Pete. "10 Web Trends to Watch in 2010 - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Diaz, Sam. "Yahoo and Twitter Partner to Mesh the Content from Both Worlds Between the Lines ZDNet.com." ZDNet Technology News. 23 Feb. 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Tobin, Jim. "5 Predictions on The Future of Social Media Ignite Social Media." Ignite Social Media -- the Original Social Media Agency. 28 July 2008. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Tapping into the Power of the Crowd

The phenomenal growth in the popularity of social networks has expanded its user base from individuals to include businesses of various sizes. Millions of people spend hours eacy day on multiple social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Contemporary businesses quickly respond to this trend by integrating social networks into their marketing strategy to gain visibility, connect to their customers, promote their products and services, and improve their bottom line.

While knowing how to tap into these social networks effectively can greatly benefit smart businesses, the adoption of social networking tools into the workforce can also pose major concerns such as lowering productivity and raising security threats. Some potential benefits and threats associated with integrating social networks into a business include the following:

The Benefits:

• Expand online contacts by establishing an impressive profile, thus minimizing costs associated with advertising and marketing efforts.
• Reach out to people personally by encouraging them to connect and become friends. This also extends connections to their network of friends as well.
• Present an online image of a business that is innovative, reputable, and reliable.
• Implement market campaigns such as special promotions, important announcements, and directed web links.

The Concerns:

• Reduce overall productivity when employees spend too much time on social networks during work hours.
• Lower company morale when some employees have to cover the workload for those who are addicted to social networking sites.
• Create problems for IT administrators to deal with high level of bandwidth usage when employees visit those sites with audio/video interfaces.
• Introduce spams and infecting malware when using third party applications within the social network sites. E.g. Koobaface worms associated with messaging software.
• Damage the company's reputation when disgruntled employees make derogatory comments about the company or when they are found to view sites with offensive and illegal content.

Faced with the dilemma of embracing this new way of online communication and confronting major security threats, companies have to decide how much access, if any, to grant their employees. Is it better to ban access to all social networking sites altogether, or grant full and unmonitored access, or settle somewhere in between? It appears that the option favored by most companies is to strike a balance by offering their employees restricted access and setting limits on Internet use. In doing so, they must also equip themselves with the following measures:

• Install current anti-virus software in all computers
• Set up a company firewall to guard against unauthorized access
• Establish and enforce company's security and Interney usage policy
• Monitor Internet usage by the employees and monitor social networking sites
• Grant employees restricted access and monitor access using web filtering software
• Conduct web security awareness training to all employees

The scary thing is that recent Facebook's privacy changes allows sharing of its users' information with other pre-approved third-party applications so that our friends would know about us, not just through Facebook, but through other sites that have alliance agreement with Facebook. Even scarier is that government agencies including the FBI and IRS also use social networking to piece together information as part of their clues to chase down criminals.

The question is: Is our life becoming public just because we joined social networking sites?

Sources:

Internet Addict Image.

Diaz, Sam. "Facebook Fan Pages Get Boost with 'Social Engagement Hub'" ZDNet Technology News. 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2010.

Dignan, Larry. "Facebook's Privacy Changes: When Will It Go Too Far (and Will You Even Notice)?" ZDNet Technology News. 29 Mar. 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2010.

Dignan, Larry, Sam Diaz, and Andrew Nusca. "FBI, Feds Collect Facebook, Social Media Data; Why Are You Surprised?" ZDNet Technology News. 17 Mar. 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2010.

Kelleher, David. "5 Problems with Social Networking in the Workplace." Information Management. 6 Oct. 2009. Web. 9 Apr. 2010.

Online Marketing with Web Analytics

Recent web trend suggests that businesses need to adopt a more interactive and responsive web strategy in order to attract visitors and convert them into customers. The change in search engine methodology (such as Microsoft Bing) is requiring companies to have more contents in their websites in order to be searched. It is important for a business to understand how its users interact with its web application so that it can develop effective strategies for expanding its users interact with its web application so that it can develop effective strategies for expanding its user base and engaging its users.

Web analytics is becoming a crucial methodology and tool for companies to analyze their websites' performance and optimize them to achieve business success. Regardless whether the goal is to raise revenue, reduce sales expenditure, or increase visibility, a typical 5-step analysis process includes:

• Defining goals for what you want your website to accomplish
• Defining metrics for measuring these goals
• Collecting data to assess your current performance
• Analyzing the data to review the weaknesses and strengths
  
• Making changes to improve performance

Different types of business may collect different metrics for their measurements. Yet metrics are only good if they can be used for decision-making. The more valuable metrics are those capable of tracking the area of the application that the users spend the most time in. For optimizing sales, metrics such as pageview (which only approximate value) are less useful than the comprehensive ones like the average revenue per user (APRU) and customer lifetime value (CLV). Other frequently used metrics for measuring performance include bounce rate, visitor acquisition, trend of basic parameters, and search analytics.

Businesses often use evaluation methods to analyze its users' web behavior and improve conversion rates. These methods include:

• Perform 'split testing' to create different versions of your site and measure how user behavior is affected by the difference.
• Conduct a 'conversion funnel analysis' to calculate conversion rates across multiple steps of user engagement (e.g. from accessing the front page to the pricing page to the account creation page)
• Perform 'Click Tracking' to record every click made by a visitor and identify important links and buttons
• Conduct 'Event Tracking' to measure what the users do on your site
• Measure relevancy, not your ego so that you can focus on what is important to your business

AOL, in its effort to promote quality and increase sales, has incorporated web analytics into its marketing strategies. All of AOL's news editors have computers with analytics tools, social network feeds and Google's trend tracking service. This allows them to collaborate virtually and produce news remotely. AOL also monitors the web traffic in its site aggressively to determine popular articles so that it can focus on writing about subjects on demand. If its users seem to favor news about Hollywood celebrities and sports stars over the much valued "investigative news", then AOL would likely to make changes to meet its customers' need.

Imagine in the future, if web analytics reveals that more people prefer gossip columns and celebrities' drama over world news, then would that be all we get from the web? Further, as web technology continues to evolve, the effectiveness of existing metrics might be greatly reduced and new metrics would be needed for performance measurement. Does this mean we would have to continuously reinvent ourselves?

Sources:

Kirkpatrick, Marshall. "Anatomy of a Blog Post Well Received." ReadWriteWeb - Web Apps, Web Technology Trends, Social Networking and Social Media. 03 June 2009. Web. 03 Apr. 2010.

Lavenda, David. "Getting Started With Online Marketing." FastCompany.com - Where Ideas and People Meet | Fast Company. 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 03 Apr. 2010.

MacMillan, Douglas. "AOL Moves to Build Tech 'Newsroom of the Future'" BusinessWeek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. 21 Feb. 2010. Web. 03 Apr. 2010.

Sullivan, Laurie. "MediaPost Publications Microsoft Bing Sends Web Analytics Scrambling." MediaPost Home. 4 June 2009. Web. 03 Apr. 2010.

"The Death of the Pageview." ReadWriteWeb - Web Apps, Web Technology Trends, Social Networking and Social Media. 17 Mar. 2010. Web. 03 Apr. 2010.

Establishing Connections in a Spider Web of Social Networks

Besides serving as an effective way of connecting people globally, social networking has become a powerful tool for job hunting and recruiting. For job seekers, these online networks provide a perfect opportunity for marketing their capabilities. For recruiters, social networking tools allow them to locate candidates with specific experience and skills quickly and inexpensively. To make the best use of social media tools, the job hunters and the recruiters may consider the following:

For the job hunters,

• Establish a presence on websites where recruiters or potential employers are likely to visit
• Establish profiles on social network sites, such as LinkedIn, Ryze, Facebook, Twitter, Coworkers.com, alumni networks, and other professional associations, to build new contacts and meet people for sharing knowledge and experience.
• Keep separate profiles for personal and professional use, but maintain consistency in the way you present yourself across different sites
• Showcase your skills, experience, interest; Emphasize your strengths that attract potential employers
• Maintain a track record to allow recruiters to solicit feedback on you from co-workers, both past and present (i.e. joining Coworkers.com)
• Raise your value and broaden your visibility by engaging in regular "tweets", maintain a 75%-25% professional-to-personal tweet ratio, and identify yourself in a professional way
• Set up a blog that represents you; use it for both information capturing as well as telling others about who you are and what you do regularly

For the recruiters,

• Use social media tools to complement traditional recruiting methods and generate a large number of results
• Identify potential candidates online and explore "passive hires", communicate and evaluating these candidates online
• Extend company's networks to become a part of a larger network (a "talent pool") by leveraging its relationships with employees and other businesses
• Set up online job boards to advertise jobs and provide accurate job description
• Employ different social network tools for different types of job openings (ie. use Craiglist for senior positions and Creativecircle for entry to mid-level positions)
• Make company attractive to candidates rather than simply specify the job requirements
  
• Establish a company blog to encourage communication, spot top talents, and project a desirable image to outsiders

Social networking embraces the concepts of "six degree of separation" - two random people can be connected to each other through six other people (Menon). Social network sites weave the weak ties among people into a powerful web of talents and skills by allowing people to tab into other people outside their direct association. It is this powerful web that everyone dabs into for resources. A common complaint from HR professionals is that the large volume of resumes received makes it difficult to identify the qualified candidates. On the other hand, a common complaint from the job seekers is that the recruiters do not always get back to them regarding feedback or decision.

I find social networking beneficial to recruiting because the online process is far more efficient, less costly, and definitely eco-friendly. In addition, both the recruiters and the job applicants get to check one another out, and become better acquainted prior to engaging in further time and cost commitment.

Sources:
Chalian, Henry. "Working with Financial Recruiters." WSJ Blogs - WSJ. 4 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

"How to Not Hire Someone Via Craigslist." How to Change the World. 27 Aug. 2007. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.

Image

Menon, Nikhil. "6 Degrees of Recruitment." The Economic Times: Business News, Personal Finance, Financial News, India Stock Market Investing, Economy News, SENSEX, NIFTY, NSE, BSE Live, IPO News. 27 Mar. 2007. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.

Miller, Lee E. "Social Networking Has Its Perks." New Jersey Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather - NJ.com. 21 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.

Porter, Joshua. "The Blog Is the New Resume." Bokardo Social Design by Joshua Porter. 19 Apr. 2007. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.

Schweyer, Allan. "The Power of Weak Ties (in Recruiting)." Small Business and Small Business Information for the Entrepreneur. 1 Aug. 2005. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.

Unlimited Collaboration - Anything. Anywhere. Anytime.

It all began when the Internet came, when can access large amount of information at our fingertips. Then we learned more, transformed more, and expected more. Today, our lives are changed forever and many of us find it painful to live without the Internet even for just one day!

Online collaboration has become popular not only in business organizations, but also government and education institutions. There is a whole spectrum of services to choose from, including browser-based team dashboards, online conferences with video capabilities, resource and document sharing, calendars, and scheduling of events, etc. Companies including Microsoft, IBM, and Google are competing intensely on their offerings of collaboration products to gain market dominance.

The Obama administration has place heavy emphasis on transparency and open government, and appointed the first CIO and CTO for its country. Propelled by the open source software movement, the administration promotes the concept of open government and uses collaborative technologies to solve collective problems at various levels of government.

Today, education institutions throughout the country are focusing more in technology education. More and more students are learning to use web 2.0 technologies to communicate, collaborate, and work together in and out of classrooms. Tools such as the wiki, blogs, videoconferencing, and online chat are adopted to induce creativity, and encourage communication and collaboration among students worldwide. This transformation is also aimed at better preparing the students when they join the workforce.

Like many organizational changes, online collaboration can be successful only if it is embraced by a supportive corporate culture. Such a culture must possess elements that foster trust, such as

• Offering flexible work schedules to employees (and allows telecommuting and off-site workers)
• Willing to share corporate information and project artifacts with others
• Willing to be available for discussing work matters beyond office hours
• Building a team of technically savvy employees
• Providing management support to this new mode of co-working

In the school environment, educators have reported problems associated with the use of online collaboration as follows:

• Not every student has a computer at home to collaborate after school
• Students tend to waste time and become distracted easily when online
• Students use non-authoritative sources and inappropriate materials
• Loss of efficiency caused by technical glitches with computer tools and limited bandwidth
• Restriction placed on web access

As pointed out in the assigned articles, the real benefit of online collaboration does not come from the nifty technologies themselves, but rather from the creative ways in which organizations make the best use of these technologies to meet their business objectives.

Sources:
Alloway, Kristen. "Students Discovering Online Collaboration." New Jersey Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather - NJ.com. 07 Nov. 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.

Clancy, Heather. "Collaborate Using Online Tools - PCWorld Business Center." Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld. 20 Apr. 2008. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.

Kelly, Will. "Corporate Culture, Not Technology, Drives Online Collaboration." WebWorkerDaily. 23 Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.

Lathrop, Daniel, and Laurel Ruma. "Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice." News for Greater Kansas City - Kansas City InfoZine News. 15 Mar. 2010. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.

Orenstein, Gary. "The Cloud Collaboration Wars Ramp Up." GigaOM. 12 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Mar. 2010.

Virtual Teams - the Good, the Bad, and the Real Beauty

Brainstorming has proven to be an effective means of collaborating and generating ideas for different types of organization. Multiple research findings has also revealed that virtual teams (long distance teams) consistently outperform real teams (face-to-face teams) in brainstorming. While some believe innovative virtual collaboration delivers magical wonders, others still prefer the warm-fuzzy in-person interactions. This week's assigned articles pose some benefits and challenges associated with virtual teams as follows:

Benefits (the "Good")

• Embrace technological advancement by using collaboration tools to stimulate face-to-face interactions


• Complete project work under-budget and ahead of schedule, if managed properly


• Offer flexible work arrangements to employees


• Avoid air travel, lodging, and lengthy non-productive meetings


• Reduce commuting time and cost


• Promote environment-friendly work options


• Have information readily available from one's desktop


• Afford team members equal opportunity to contribute regardless of their physical location


• Empower innovative thinking through diversity in team members

Challenges (the "Bad")

• Require team leaders to put in extra effort in keeping their teams together


• Build and maintain trust among team members, given little face time and a diverse team membership


• Require team leaders to be creative in generating ideas, and effective in making decisions and resolving conflicts


• Ensure that availability, competency, consistency, fairness, openness, and commitment are not compromised


• Orchestrates conference calls, set expectations and accountability for team members


• Overcome organizational resistance to change regarding the new way of collaboration


• Win over individuals who prefer inventing themselves and developing their own work processes rather than collaborating with others


• Large meetings tend to be more informational and political in nature rather than collaborative

The real beauty in these "far flung" virtual teams lies in the ability of smart organizations in integrating new innovative technologies into their businesses. Collaboration tools such as video conferencing via Skype, web conferencing with screen-sharing, sharing online workspaces and applications via WebEx, have facilitated collaboration and fueled productivity. Recently, the improved security features have extended the applicability of virtual collaboration to military use. Like other work teams, successful virtual teams require an effective team composition. Core players include the Leader, the Brain, the Anchor, the Soldier, and occasionally the Freelancer. The Leader comes up with new ideas, sets up a plan, and holds the team together. Based on the ideas, the Brain creates strategy and develops action plans. The Anchor identifies potential problems at the onset. The Soldier executes the action plan with determination. The Freelancer who possesses specific skills is often brought in to fill an assigned role.

If organizations are willing and able to transition their workers to virtual offices, and that we can order groceries online and have them delivered to our door steps, and that we can purchase food tablets (such as pizza, chicken, etc.) and turn them into real food in our high-tech ovens (just like the movie Back to the Future), then we may not have to leave our house at all!

Sources:
Beizer, Doug. "Collaboration Tools Are Ready For the Battlefield." Government Computer News -- Government Computer News. 1 Mar. 2005. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.

"How to Pick Your Million Dollar Crew Mind of a Hustler." Welcome to the Mind of a Hustler. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.

Kostner, Jaclyn. "6 Ways to Build Trust with Your Virtual Team." Web Meeting Conferencing Web Meeting: Web Conferencing. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.

Lipnack, Jessica, and Jeffrey Stamps. "The Strange Beauty of Virtual Teams - Jessica Lipnack & Jeffrey Stamps." Business Development Strategy Milestone Group. Oct. 2007. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.

"Michael Sampson: The Implementation of Collaboration Tools Does Not Require a Change in Culture." Michael Sampson: Independent Advisory Services on Collaboration Strategy. 16 Oct. 2007. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.

Sebastio, Nuno. "Brainstorming? Try doing it virtually." Endless Knots. 03 Dec. 2007. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.

Visser, Gerrit. "Coworking Is (also) : Working Together Online." Smart Mobs. 19 Mar. 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2010

Touring the Virtual World in Our Pajamas and Slippers

As virtual world interfaces are gaining popularity, many believe this breakthrough technology would become the future means by which we access information.

Second Life, a popular virtual world, allows users ("residents") to interact and collaborate through customized avatars. Its objective is to offer cost-effective, innovative solutions by integrating virtual world into our traditional real world setting. Second Life has particularly wide application in the education environment. Popular use includes serving as classroom replacements, classroom enhancements, recruiting tools, and self-directed learning tools. Specific benefits include:

• Allows teachers or professors to reuse class materials easily
• Enables the university to offer classes to students around the globe
• Imposes low hardware requirements on students
• Provides an experience that is uniform and compatible to various platforms
• Uses generic tools that are recyclable between classrooms and universities
• Integrates with in-world tools, such as furniture and text-entry equipment, to tailor a classroom setting according to one's needs
• Allows educators to create, monitor, and investigate 'interactive experiments' in science
• Allows users to observe different aspects of the weather and meteorology monitoring lab
• Allows higher education's graduate programs to advertise its capabilities and recruit new students
• Offers interactive teaching tools for self-directed learning, progresses at an individual's own pace and availability

Yale University has created two Second Life islands with two projecrs. The first was a simulation project of the recreation of the Seeley J. Mudd Library on Second Life. The second project was the design of a virtual paper mill on Second Life in which students can explore the mill's operations including the machinery and processes. Both projects offer effective, inexpensive, and seemingly real experiences that would otherwise be unattainable.

Other interesting applications of virtual worlds can be found in purchasing, trading, and social gaming. People purchase virtual gifts at relatively inexpensive price for others and for themselves. For example, people can purchase Facebook gift items, Farm Coins and Cash for Farmville, or Xbox accessories for avatars. These micropurchases can amount to big venue for the creators of such products. Virtual goods are high in intangible value because gift-giving allow people to spread love and "exchange sentiments" with one another. People bought accessories, either to upgrade their avatars or enhance their gaming experience, allow them to express their uniqueness and assert their identities. In the virtual gaming environment, researches are being conducted to study gamers' behavior, which will offer insights to enhancing future gaming experience.

With virtual world interface gaining ground like lightning one obvious question is, when virtual world sales are becoming so quickly, how is that going to impact the real world economy? In other words, if we are satisfied with doing everything in a virtual world, then would we be needing clothing other than pajamas and slippers?

Sources:

Hand, Randall. "Learning in Second Life: Virtual Education VizWorld.com." VizWorld.com - Visualization, Computer Graphics, and Animation. Web. 21 Feb. 2010.

O'Donnell, Jayne. "Unlike reality, virtual retail sales are hot, especially for avatars." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Web. 21 Feb. 2010.

Patuwo, Grace. "Yale Daily News - Virtual world, real money in 'Second Life'" Yale Daily News - The Nation's Oldest College Daily. Web. 21 Feb. 2010.

Schonfeld, Erick. "Augmented Reality Vs. Virtual Reality: Which One Is More Real?" TechCrunch. Web. 21 Feb. 2010.

"Understanding interaction in virtual worlds." Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. Web. 21 Feb. 2010

Are You Ready to Venture into a BRAND New World?

Thanks to the development of social media, contemporary job hunters are afforded new and creative ways of finding that dream job online, without having to blast out blind resumes and constantly look up job-boards. There are online social networks, so-called "Professional Web", that help people manage their career. For example, LinkedIn, Ziggs, and ZoomInfo are great tools that enable people create a profile page, convey their skills and experience, and boost the image they want to present to the world.

Even better, many of these online networking tools are free-of-charge. Yes, I mean FREEBIES, again!

LinkedIn, a relevant social network available since 2003, has aggregated over 20 million members. It offers useful resources for professional and businesses as well as advertises free in-person networking events. Due to its abundant source of people's information, professionals can find creative ways to use the site. While a marketing professional may use it to promote his or her company's brand, conduct market research, look for prospective clients, and check up on competitors, an HR professional may use it to recruit, do background checks, and host email campaigns. All other folks may use it for open networking, Q&A, introductions, recommendations, and many more. Further, some businesses offer cash incentives to anyone who recommends candidates that result in successful hire. To further grow its user base, LinkedIn has also introduced new updates and additions such as group media, profile page, and iPhone application. Like most social networks, LinkedIn has its values as well as its flaws. Thus, users need to be aware of its potentials and use it wisely.

Now that we have venues to make us visible out there, how are we going to do it?

One way to effectively promote ourselves is through Personal Branding. We need to develop a strategy to campaign ourselves. We must be able to address questions such as what makes us stand out from the crowd, what are our greatest strengths and remarkable personal traits, what are our work ethics, and what value-add do we offer to our project teams, etc. We also need to know our mission and our passions (i.e. what do we want to do and what we want to be famous for?) and be able to deliver, with style, a unique and representative message about us.

In campaigning ourselves, one key step is to find ways to gain visibility. Some ways to promote word-of-mouth marketing include engaging in activities that can enrich our profile and show our skills, maintaining good social networks with our colleagues and friends, and growing influence and reputational power over those we work or associate with. The goal is to create a perception in others that we exhibit creditability, leadership, and power. Sometimes, it may mean teaching a class, contributing to a local newspaper, joining panel discussion, or presenting at workshops. Other times, it may mean volunteering for tasks at work that can broaden our involvement and thus allow us to voice our opinion on important issues. Bear in mind that, in order to get optimal results from using social media such as LinkedIn, we must invest time and effort in regularly assessing the changing market. This allows us to keep our skills in line with the market demand, and reinvent ourselves as necessary to maintain our brand's value.

Will all being said and done, is it safe to assume that our career would be a smooth sailing, with little left to do except inquiring the Magic 8-Ball regarding our luck or waiting for a wishing star to zoom by? Or, do we still feel that our career remain a challenge, like a checkerboard, a maze, or even a Rubix Cube?

Sources:

Branding Image

Lidsky, David. "It's Not Just Who You Know." FastCompany.com - Where ideas and people meet | Fast Company. 19 Dec. 2007. Web. 18 Feb. 2010.

Peters, Tom. "The Brand Called You." FastCompany.com - Where ideas and people meet | Fast Company. 18 Dec. 2007. Web. 18 Feb. 2010.

Ryan, Liz. "The Savvy Networker." Yahoo! HotJobs - Thousands of jobs. Find the right one. Web. 18 Feb. 2010.

Wallace, Brian. "How to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn." Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide. Web. 18 Feb. 2010.

Beware of Mobile Stalkers...They're on the Loose

Many telecommunication businesses believe that the GPS-enabled phone is a game changer in the wireless phone industry. As early as 2007, mobile social networking already existed, integrated with GPS location awareness programs (such as Buddy Beacon and Rave Guardian) and cut-down versions of social networks (such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter). Businesses expect this nifty new gadget to spice up the life of many, especially those under 25. While many embrace this new revolutionary technology with open arms, others fear potential cyberstalking.

Here are some positive and negative aspects of Mososo:

Pros:

• The GPS-enabled phone can pinpoint your location and direct you to places such as famous landmarks, motorway services, restaurants, or other entertainments.

• The whereabouts of your friends can be quickly located, making it easier for you to hang out with them.

• Software like Ubisafe can help parents to track the exact location of their children.
  

• The GPS alert services can help locate an elderly relative in distress quickly.

• A cyberscort service, such as Rave Guardian provided by Rave Wireless, Inc., links to campus police to ensure the safe arrival college students to their destination.

• Location-based services can generate business opportunities through the use of ad marketing.
  

Cons:

• To some, there are privacy concerns since the GPS phone keep tabs of you even while you are asleep and you have no control over who knows where you are (or who is stalking you)

• Being tracked by your friends, boss, or loved ones every minute of the day can be quite annoying.

• Being bombarded by location-based services with targeted ads and updates, and having your phone screen clogged up regularly can be irritating.

• Location awareness posts safety concerns. Pedophiles or identity thieves can hack into the mobile network and locate the whereabouts of you and your family members.

• The software application can be extremely addictive. Youngsters can stay logged into a virtual network, thus losing awareness of the real world.

Two years ago, some people were skeptical of the location awareness program on wireless phones. Today, it is evident that this integration solution is gaining popularity. As an example, back in 2007 mobile social network programs (like Buddy Beacon) were available only on compatible phones. Today, such programs run on multiple wireless carriers and phones. Speaking of which, Campus Police at American University is currently using Rave Guardian as a part of its student safety program.

Well then, if we had food, water (although some may prefer beer), and a GPS-enabled phone that we could text, send photos, watch movies, hound our friends, and locate hot spots (of course transportation and some money would be nice), then what else would we want?

Sources:

Cieslak, Marc. "Rise and Rise of the GPS Mobile." BBC NEWS | News Front Page. 7 Mar. 2008. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.

Goodale, Gloria. "Students' New Best Friend: 'MoSoSo'" The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com. 19 Jan. 2007. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.

Hamilton, Anita. "A Wireless Street Fight - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 15 Feb. 2007. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.

McCarthy, Caroline. "The Mobile Social: Not Ready for Prime Time?" Technology News - CNET News. 13 Feb. 2008. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.

Samsung Mobile Phone. Digital image. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.

Is the World Getting Creepier?

David Simond's Word of Mouse discusses Conversational Marketing, a new breakthrough of online marketing. Through this form of advertising, marketers draw on the the power of the Internet social networks, such as Facebook and Myspace, to connect to consumers and promote their products and services.

As expected, there are pros and cons to this new trend.

Pros:

• It's cool to become friends (or fans) of my favorite bands and organizations on Facebook because I get updates on what's new (e.g. new music, latest fashion, upcoming events, discounts, and freebies). I happened to be a fan of AMF 300 Shady Grove, a local bowling alley. It is just notified me about college night on Thursdays from 9:00 PM to midnight. College students who show their college ids can play unlimited bowling for just $10, eat for $5, and drink for $3.

• It is also good to show what you're a fan of. Not only does it serve as a conversation starter, it also come in handy when friends and family need hints on finding me gifts.
  

Cons:

• I find the Fandango scenario kind of creepy. Imagine you purchase movie tickets (via Fandango) while signed into Facebook, it automatically notifies your Facebook friends via news feed as to which movie, what theater, and what showtime. If the "not-so-desirable" someone decides to come along or show up unexpectedly, it's not easy to say "no". In fact, this is also true with online Blockbuster Movie Rentals. When you add a movie into your queue, it notifies your Facebook friends via news feed which movies you are interested in seeing.
  

• I also find the status update on Facebook creepy. Sometimes it feels like someone is watching what I put out there. For example, if I update my status or information page about liking Starbucks, there would be abs on the right offering free $25.00 gift card (which is usually a scam attempting to solicit personal information.

Regarding the statement that "Facebook allows its users to opt out of sharing their information", I find it frustrating at time. Facebook updates its site as often as people change clothes, and when that happens, all the privacy settings get messed up. It sucks because everything gets shared again until we reconfigure the settings.

For the article Why Conversational Marketing Requires Fundamental Business Change, Vicky Tamaru identified three requirements of conversational marketing to be effective. These include on-going, two-way, and authentic conversation with the customers. However, I feel that these are general marketing strategies for most businesses. In order to retain customers, a business must maintain good relationships with them and earn their trust and loyalty.


Sources:
Image

Tamaru, Vicky. "Why Conversational Marketing Requires Fundamental Business Change | Branded Entertainment." Business Resources, Advice and Forms for Large and Small Businesses. Web. 02 Feb. 2010.

"Word of Mouse." Economist.com. Web. 02 Feb. 2010.

The World of Freebies

Let's face it, everyone loves freebies. The Internet offers many of them, from free movie passes, to free meals, to free music, etc, at a single click.

Is the Internet Making Us Dumber? The answer to this question can be a "yes"or "no" depending how you look at it.

There are certainly many benefits associated with Internet usage. It enables people to:

• pool in their resources and share their knowledge with others,
• develop creative ideas from the suggestions of others,
• find information quickly so that tasks are accomplished more efficiently and effectively,
• expand knowledge base (sometimes out of curiosity) through search engine like Google,
• get connected to one another globally. When people update their statuses on Facebook or Twitter, all of their friends know what they are up to.

However, there are some drawbacks involved if people do not use the Internet properly.

• Lifestyle change may cause loss of culture or tradition. Back in the day when computers were not available, people would spend more time reading newspaper or magazine, allowing them to gain knowledge about the world. Nowadays, many people depend on the Internet for their information needs, and they read only those issues that are eye-catching and quickly get distracted by other information.

• People spend too much time on social networking sites. They are too busy in catching up with everyone's excitement and drama.

• People may not be able to distinguish reliable information from the unreliable ones on the Internet. Many people fall for unknown schemes or scams, and end up giving out personal identification information to strangers or marketing firms.

My view of the Internet includes the following:

• People need to know how credible a source is - whether it is a "user-generated" opinion or a proven or well-supported fact. Thus, they should verify their sources carefully before using them. Even familiar websites like ratemyprofessors.com or fandango.com may offer limited and biased information on students' opinion about a professor (or a class), or viewers' feedback about a movie.

• There is a bright and dark side to the Internet. The bright side is that "anyone can publish, collaborate, and edit others' work" with little restrictions. The dark side is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to control what people publish and edit, which may be offensive or inappropriate at times.

• Technology is constantly evolving. Undoubtedly, people need to embrace this intellectual change so that they do not fall behind. It is important that people be educated on the power and danger of the Internet. This enables them to optimize social media usage while protecting themselves from unwarranted web intruders and identify theft.

• As consumer culture (e.g. ad campaigns) is built in as part of the Internet, it further encourages the additive behavior in people. Thus self-discipline in terms of time and resource management is extremely important to avoid lollygagging (being lazy and avoid work), just like what TV turns people into couch potatoes.
  

Sources:

Keen, Andrew. "The Digital Emperor Has No Clothes - Associations Now Magazine - Publications and Resources -." ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership. Web. 30 Jan. 2010.

Riley, Duncan. "Nobel Laureate Says The Internet Makes Us Dumb, We Say: Meh." TechCrunch. Web. 30 Jan. 2010.

Freebies Digital Image.

The Truth about Crowdsourcing

For this week's blog, I have chosen to comment on the following articles:

1. Is Crowdsourcing Evil? The Design Community Weighs In
2. The Myth of Crowdsourcing

Before reading these articles, I bet many people would have thought that crowdsourcing dealt with a crowd of people collaborating on a project and everyone who contributed would have received a fair share of money compensation. Well, that is hardly the case!

Crowdsourcing is a fancy term for a competition or contest. Think about a food eating competition, a kid's coloring contest, and/or designing a banner to promote a music band. Each individual who entered into the competition or contest may have put forth a great deal of time and effort knowing that he or she has only a slight chance of winning. For the most part, there is only one grand prize winner who gets his or her name recognized and receives the grand prize, usually money or luxury good like a trip for two to a hot spot.

I think crowdsourcing is good for today's businesses but not so good for future businesses. With all of the submissions, not only do businesses gather great ideas for future logos or multi-purpose designs, they also reap tremendous cost savings on the design effort. However, there are two drawbacks for future businesses regarding the disruption to the design industry and the reduction in creative ideas. First, professional designers will lose their jobs to amateurs or recent grads with similar capability (in terms of talent and skill). Some of these designers may even have to change career. Second, when the winner's design is reviewed, many will interpret what businesses is looking for and want to imitate the winner's design style for future projects. In doing so, design ideas will converge and become less creative.

To avoid conformity and induce creativity, one possible consideration is for businesses to make their "competitions" private - soliciting ideas, announcing the winner's name but not displaying the winner's design.

Articles:

Howe, Jeff P. "Is Crowdsourcing Evil? The Design Community Weighs In | Epicenter | Wired.com." Wired News. 10 Mar. 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2010.

Woods, Dan. "The Myth of Crowdsourcing - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2010.


Images:
Crowdsourcing. Digital image. Web. 23 Jan. 2010.

The Truth about Informal Networks

For this week's blog post, I have chosen to comment on the following two articles:
"Six Myths About Informal Networks - and How To Overcome Them" [MIT Sloan Management Review]
&
"The People Who Make Organizations Go-or-Stop" [Harvard Business Review]

The first article discusses how corporate executives fail to nurture informal networks due to strongly-held myths about how to make these networks more effective. A number of interesting points were presented. To build a stronger informal network, people should connect and communicate, not with everyone but, with those who provide relevant information. Instead of changing technical infrastructure to promote collaboration, organizations can assist informal networks by modifying their formal structure, work management practices, employee management practices, and their cultural values. To avoid information bottleneck at a central person, organizations can distribute information and decision-making responsibilities to others. It is also important for organizations to understand how informal networks function to get work accomplished so that corporate executives can strategically support these networks to benefit the organizations.

The second article discusses the importance of social networks and the four key role-players - central connector, boundary spanner, information broker, and peripheral specialist. The central connector, also known as the go-to-person, serves as the main source of information for the whole network. The boundary spanner links the central connector in multiple external networks so that they can share information as well as various types of expertise. The information broker connects various sub-networks within an organization in large information network to promote information sharing. The peripheral specialist serves as an expert for the network in special information or technical knowledge. He or she is not integrated in the network so that he or she can focus on advancing his or her area of expertise.

The thing that sparked my interest the most was the social network analysis - a powerful tool that corporate executives use to identify employees' social relationships within an organization. This allows the organization to help its employees to build more social relationships as needed.

I recommend both of these articles to everyone since it is informative and easy-to-read.

Images:
Social Networking. Digital image. Web. 16 Jan. 2010. http://muktiweb.org/images/social-networking.jpg.

A Fresh Start

Hi all. It's Samantha. I am a sophomore-junior in American University's Kogod School of Business. I am currently a student in Professor Melander's ITEC 335: Social Networking, Social Media, and Web 2.0 course.

Academic Integrity Pledge: On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own.