Information Communication Technology 2
ICTs: Challenges
¡ “Spurred by a sense of urgency and the need to respond, multicommunicating may drive communicators to value a false sense of efficiency over strategic effectiveness, and the juggling of messages over the development of dialogue. As these messages are juggled, it may become increasingly more difficult to focus on the needs of the recipient, creating a tunnel vision on the part of the communicator.”(Turner & Reinsch 2009)
ICTs: Opportunities
¡ Digital Natives v. Digital Immigrants
§ Naturalize, normalize & “build-in” technology
§ "Exposure to these new technologies may be pushing the Net Generation brain past conventional limitations.“(Don Tapscott, 2009)
¡ Continuous Partial Attention (Linda Stone, 2009)
§ Not multitasking but switching between parallel activities
Three Paradox of the Internet
Douglas Coupland: Tip#17
¡ “You’ve become a notch in the internet’s belt. Don’t try to delude yourself that you’re a romantic lone individual. To the new order, you’re just a node.”
¡ Existential: the new simultaneous pact between cloud, maker, and user?
¡ Exchange for virtual freedom: your ‘sovereign choices’ as data streams for analytics and metrics-generation?
Nick Carr’s Metaphor: The Shallows
¡ “Is Google making us stupid? When Nicholas Carr posed that question in a celebrated Atlantic essay, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?”
¡ “The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways.”
¡ “Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic — a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence.”
Business: The song remains the same
¡ Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010
Communication medium
¡ The medium is the message. (McLuhan)
¡ Medium choice can determine perception. (Richardson and Smith 2007)
¡ Communications partner can determine media choice. (Richardson and Smith 2007)
¡ Medium as a site of cultural expression and value.
¡ McLuhan: was speaking to the way in which how we communication often determines the perception of our communication. Other examples: BBC Television. Medium value: contrast oral vs. written slander.
Edelman 2010: Medium as Credibility
¡ External, secondary sources most trusted.
¡ Search engines, social networking amongst least trusted.
10 levels of intimacy in today’s conversation (most to least)
1. Talking
2. Video chat
3. Phone
4. Letter
5. IM
6. Text message
7. Email
8. Facebook message
9. Facebook status
10. Twitter
Medium as message
¡ Media “richness”: ability to convey information, to accommodate and control ambiguity (equivocality).
More “rich” media
¡ Face to face (f2f)
¡ Telephone
¡ Skype?
¡ Allows for non-verbal expression.
¡ Preferred by High-context cultures
¡ More “rich” media allows for fuller expression, verbal and non-verbal. In HC cultures allows for expressions of deference and respect.
Less “rich” media
¡ Email/IM/Twitter
¡ Letters/memos
¡ Lack social context cues.
¡ Less preferred by HCC.
¡ Less rich media is that which cannot capture the totality of our expression. It cannot accommodate or communicate non-verbal means of expression.
Consider the Reader
¡ Consider cultural/intercultural norms.
¡ Consider accessibility, availability, media experience.
¡ Consider Power Distance (PD).
¡ Consider content.
¡ Power Distance can be above, below, or non-existent.
¡ Communication openness determined culturally: Schiller and Cui: Chinese workers more frank in IM than in F2F exchanges.
¡ Open communication is critical to the effectiveness, efficiency, and overall success of a business. It is believed that communication openness interplays with media channels and cultural contexts in which the communication takes place. Our study investigated communication openness in downward, peer, and upward directions in face-to-face (F2F) and instant messaging (IM) in the workplace in both the United States and China. An online survey was administrated in both countries, and we received 529 valid responses. Repeated measures of ANOVA and MANOVA were used for data analysis. We found that the degree of openness in communication was higher in F2F conversations than through IM; however, this relationship differed in the two cultures. When communicating F2F, American employees were generally more open than Chinese employees, especially when such communication happened between peer colleagues. When communicating through IM, Chinese workers, however, were far more open than American workers in all downward, peer, and upward directions. The main findings, the implications for research and practice, and the limitations of this study were discussed accordingly.
Effective or Dependence
Power Point
Anticipating PPT: Nietzsche & New Writing Machines
· “Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” (Freidrich Nietzsche, 1882, on his Malling-Hansen Writing Ball)
PowerPoint isn’t evil…
· You just have t o learn how to use it effectively
Blogging
¡ From private to public domain, from personal diaries to business dissemination, from “walled garden” to “live blogging” (Fernando, 2oo7)
¡ “Just because there are free tools for blogging doesn’t mean you should use them for your business. That’s like using free clip art as your logo” (Yang-May Ooi; cit. Cambrie, 2007)
¡ Can be risky business tool.
¡ People “read blogs to get the information behind the corporate speak” (Paine, 2007)
¡ 70% of marketing executives list fake promotional blogs as biggest corporate blunder (Cody, 2007)
¡ Only 10 CEOs of major corporations author their own blogs (Cody, 2007)
Burson-Marstellar 2010
¡ “While many positive potential outcomes are possible, there are an equal number of challenges that companies must acknowledge when participating in social media.”
¡ “To help companies navigate the social media landscape, we have developed an Evidence-Based Communications tool called the “Social Media Check-up” which analyzes and measures at how a company’s social media presence is impacting their overall online health and reputation.”
Toward the Cloud: Wikis (Fernando, 2007)
Knowledge-sharing technology for internal/external, public/private uses
¡ “Basic house rules. No obscenities, no plagiarism, no advertising or self-promotion, and no secondary content without sources. Above all, please be courteous: this community is based on mutual respect and openness. But be bold too.”
Instant Messaging
¡ Allows for real-time communication with colleagues and co-workers
¡ Analogous to post-it notes, both in lasting power (archiving) and in depth of content.
¡ Advantages
§ Provides immediate contact
§ Avoids swamping list members with unnecessary messages
§ Can allow for value-added features such as sharing of desktop applications
¡ Disadvantages
§ Need to install proper IM client such as Yahoo or AOL Messenger
§ Have to deal with interruptions
§ Has no archival capability
§ Can be problematic to follow discussion when used by several people
Social Networking for Business
¡ “The key is finding the right voice and the right tools” (Burson-Marsteller 2010)
¡ Horizontal: range of channels, global
¡ Vertical: range of conversations, local to global.
¡ Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
Facebook: Access vs. Security
¡ In first part of 2009, 20% increase in companies banning social networking.
¡ “Before long, social networking will be up there with pornography” (Spencer Parker, ScanSafe)
¡ Banning access is “one of the most awful things businesses can do to themselves” (James Norrie, Ryerson)
Social Networking Sites (Paine 2007)
¡ Metrics to evaluate: quantity or quality? Breadth or depth of network? Conversation metrics: traffic/feedback? Benchmarks?
¡ Management issues: how do you manage 10 million independent thinkers?
¡ Free (Technorati) or paid services CyberAlert, NielsonBuzz)?
Social Networking
¡ H&R Block
§ Twitter
§ Second Life: virtual tax preparation store.
Facebook & Business
¡ Fan pages: Since July 2009, growth of population from 2x to 8x (Burson-Masteller 2010)
¡ Ongoing conversation with customers and stakeholders.
Twitter: Micro-message
¡ January 2009: est. 5.9 million users.
¡ January 2008-January 2009: Moves from #22 to #3 in social networking ranks. (compete.com)
¡ Emerging uses: Speidi to Iran to Global Business
Power of Twitter
¡ “GM Cancels ‘Hideous’ Buick SUV After Would-Be Customers Twitter” (Bloomberg, 2009)
¡ “Negative feedback spread on Twitter Inc.’s site after users began calling the vehicle a “Vuick,” a reference to GM’s Saturn Vue that provided the basis for the Buick…Detractors began using the ‘#Vuick’ name as a hash tag – an indexing tool on Twitter that lets users quickly find messages on the same topic.”
Youtube & Crisis Communications
¡ Jet Blue, 2007: CEO apologizes for and takes responsibility for inconvenience suffered by stranded passengers.
¡ Maple Leaf Foods, 2008:CEO releases series of Youtube videos addressing concerns surroundingListeriosis contamination.
Youtube and Consumer Response
“United Breaks Guitars”
¡ 3+ Million views in 10 days
¡ “At that moment it occurred to me that I had been fighting a losing battle all this time and that fighting over this at all was a waste of time. The system is designed to frustrate affected customers into giving up their claims and United is very good at it. However, I realized then that as a songwriter and traveling musician I wasn’t without options.” (Dave Carroll)
Communications Technology
¡ Skype
¡ 2008: 405 Million registered users (inc. 47% from 2007)
Application to SCP
¡ How does the organization use technology in its day-to-day operations?
¡ What effect has technology had on growth, productivity, and/ or reputation?
¡ How can technology benefit further the organization, its partners, clients, customers?
¡ Is new technology complemented by old? Face-to-face?
¡ Is technology updated appropriately? Tracked and evaluated?
¡ For business objectives and target audiences?
¡ Is technology used to support flexible and open organizational culture?
¡ Is technology use cost-effective?
¡ Strategy & Tactics: Media choices determine message reception.
¡ Audiences: Appropriate media for appropriate audience.
¡ Budget: ICT versus traditional modes.
¡ “Spurred by a sense of urgency and the need to respond, multicommunicating may drive communicators to value a false sense of efficiency over strategic effectiveness, and the juggling of messages over the development of dialogue. As these messages are juggled, it may become increasingly more difficult to focus on the needs of the recipient, creating a tunnel vision on the part of the communicator.”(Turner & Reinsch 2009)
ICTs: Opportunities
¡ Digital Natives v. Digital Immigrants
§ Naturalize, normalize & “build-in” technology
§ "Exposure to these new technologies may be pushing the Net Generation brain past conventional limitations.“(Don Tapscott, 2009)
¡ Continuous Partial Attention (Linda Stone, 2009)
§ Not multitasking but switching between parallel activities
Three Paradox of the Internet
- More access to information doesn’t bring people together; it often isolates us.
- Individual perception of increased choice can occur while the overall choice pool is getting smaller. (“pseudo-diversity”)
- The myth of personal empowerment takes root amidst a massive loss of personal control.
Douglas Coupland: Tip#17
¡ “You’ve become a notch in the internet’s belt. Don’t try to delude yourself that you’re a romantic lone individual. To the new order, you’re just a node.”
¡ Existential: the new simultaneous pact between cloud, maker, and user?
¡ Exchange for virtual freedom: your ‘sovereign choices’ as data streams for analytics and metrics-generation?
Nick Carr’s Metaphor: The Shallows
¡ “Is Google making us stupid? When Nicholas Carr posed that question in a celebrated Atlantic essay, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?”
¡ “The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways.”
¡ “Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic — a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence.”
Business: The song remains the same
¡ Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010
- Cloud Computing
- Advanced Analytics
- Client Computing
- IT for Green
- Reshaping the Data Centre
- Social Computing
- Security: Activity Monitoring
- Flash Memory (SSD)
- Virtualization Availability
- Mobile Applications ………(Lorinc: The Age of the App)
Communication medium
¡ The medium is the message. (McLuhan)
¡ Medium choice can determine perception. (Richardson and Smith 2007)
¡ Communications partner can determine media choice. (Richardson and Smith 2007)
¡ Medium as a site of cultural expression and value.
¡ McLuhan: was speaking to the way in which how we communication often determines the perception of our communication. Other examples: BBC Television. Medium value: contrast oral vs. written slander.
Edelman 2010: Medium as Credibility
¡ External, secondary sources most trusted.
¡ Search engines, social networking amongst least trusted.
10 levels of intimacy in today’s conversation (most to least)
1. Talking
2. Video chat
3. Phone
4. Letter
5. IM
6. Text message
7. Email
8. Facebook message
9. Facebook status
10. Twitter
Medium as message
¡ Media “richness”: ability to convey information, to accommodate and control ambiguity (equivocality).
More “rich” media
¡ Face to face (f2f)
¡ Telephone
¡ Skype?
¡ Allows for non-verbal expression.
¡ Preferred by High-context cultures
¡ More “rich” media allows for fuller expression, verbal and non-verbal. In HC cultures allows for expressions of deference and respect.
Less “rich” media
¡ Email/IM/Twitter
¡ Letters/memos
¡ Lack social context cues.
¡ Less preferred by HCC.
¡ Less rich media is that which cannot capture the totality of our expression. It cannot accommodate or communicate non-verbal means of expression.
Consider the Reader
¡ Consider cultural/intercultural norms.
¡ Consider accessibility, availability, media experience.
¡ Consider Power Distance (PD).
¡ Consider content.
¡ Power Distance can be above, below, or non-existent.
¡ Communication openness determined culturally: Schiller and Cui: Chinese workers more frank in IM than in F2F exchanges.
¡ Open communication is critical to the effectiveness, efficiency, and overall success of a business. It is believed that communication openness interplays with media channels and cultural contexts in which the communication takes place. Our study investigated communication openness in downward, peer, and upward directions in face-to-face (F2F) and instant messaging (IM) in the workplace in both the United States and China. An online survey was administrated in both countries, and we received 529 valid responses. Repeated measures of ANOVA and MANOVA were used for data analysis. We found that the degree of openness in communication was higher in F2F conversations than through IM; however, this relationship differed in the two cultures. When communicating F2F, American employees were generally more open than Chinese employees, especially when such communication happened between peer colleagues. When communicating through IM, Chinese workers, however, were far more open than American workers in all downward, peer, and upward directions. The main findings, the implications for research and practice, and the limitations of this study were discussed accordingly.
Effective or Dependence
Power Point
- “It edits ideas. It is, almost surreptitiously, a business manual as well as a business suit, with an opinion—an oddly pedantic, prescriptive opinion—about the way we should think.” (Parker, 2001)
Anticipating PPT: Nietzsche & New Writing Machines
· “Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” (Freidrich Nietzsche, 1882, on his Malling-Hansen Writing Ball)
PowerPoint isn’t evil…
· You just have t o learn how to use it effectively
Blogging
¡ From private to public domain, from personal diaries to business dissemination, from “walled garden” to “live blogging” (Fernando, 2oo7)
¡ “Just because there are free tools for blogging doesn’t mean you should use them for your business. That’s like using free clip art as your logo” (Yang-May Ooi; cit. Cambrie, 2007)
¡ Can be risky business tool.
¡ People “read blogs to get the information behind the corporate speak” (Paine, 2007)
¡ 70% of marketing executives list fake promotional blogs as biggest corporate blunder (Cody, 2007)
¡ Only 10 CEOs of major corporations author their own blogs (Cody, 2007)
Burson-Marstellar 2010
¡ “While many positive potential outcomes are possible, there are an equal number of challenges that companies must acknowledge when participating in social media.”
¡ “To help companies navigate the social media landscape, we have developed an Evidence-Based Communications tool called the “Social Media Check-up” which analyzes and measures at how a company’s social media presence is impacting their overall online health and reputation.”
Toward the Cloud: Wikis (Fernando, 2007)
Knowledge-sharing technology for internal/external, public/private uses
- Can create and edit within a web environment without the need to download specific software
- Can use simple mark up language
- Can operate without IT support
- Organized not by chronology typically but by contexts and links
- We Are Smarter Than Me (Wharton School of Business, Sloan School of Management, & Pearson)
¡ “Basic house rules. No obscenities, no plagiarism, no advertising or self-promotion, and no secondary content without sources. Above all, please be courteous: this community is based on mutual respect and openness. But be bold too.”
Instant Messaging
¡ Allows for real-time communication with colleagues and co-workers
¡ Analogous to post-it notes, both in lasting power (archiving) and in depth of content.
¡ Advantages
§ Provides immediate contact
§ Avoids swamping list members with unnecessary messages
§ Can allow for value-added features such as sharing of desktop applications
¡ Disadvantages
§ Need to install proper IM client such as Yahoo or AOL Messenger
§ Have to deal with interruptions
§ Has no archival capability
§ Can be problematic to follow discussion when used by several people
Social Networking for Business
¡ “The key is finding the right voice and the right tools” (Burson-Marsteller 2010)
¡ Horizontal: range of channels, global
¡ Vertical: range of conversations, local to global.
¡ Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
Facebook: Access vs. Security
¡ In first part of 2009, 20% increase in companies banning social networking.
¡ “Before long, social networking will be up there with pornography” (Spencer Parker, ScanSafe)
¡ Banning access is “one of the most awful things businesses can do to themselves” (James Norrie, Ryerson)
Social Networking Sites (Paine 2007)
¡ Metrics to evaluate: quantity or quality? Breadth or depth of network? Conversation metrics: traffic/feedback? Benchmarks?
¡ Management issues: how do you manage 10 million independent thinkers?
¡ Free (Technorati) or paid services CyberAlert, NielsonBuzz)?
Social Networking
¡ H&R Block
§ Second Life: virtual tax preparation store.
Facebook & Business
¡ Fan pages: Since July 2009, growth of population from 2x to 8x (Burson-Masteller 2010)
¡ Ongoing conversation with customers and stakeholders.
Twitter: Micro-message
¡ January 2009: est. 5.9 million users.
¡ January 2008-January 2009: Moves from #22 to #3 in social networking ranks. (compete.com)
¡ Emerging uses: Speidi to Iran to Global Business
Power of Twitter
¡ “GM Cancels ‘Hideous’ Buick SUV After Would-Be Customers Twitter” (Bloomberg, 2009)
¡ “Negative feedback spread on Twitter Inc.’s site after users began calling the vehicle a “Vuick,” a reference to GM’s Saturn Vue that provided the basis for the Buick…Detractors began using the ‘#Vuick’ name as a hash tag – an indexing tool on Twitter that lets users quickly find messages on the same topic.”
Youtube & Crisis Communications
¡ Jet Blue, 2007: CEO apologizes for and takes responsibility for inconvenience suffered by stranded passengers.
¡ Maple Leaf Foods, 2008:CEO releases series of Youtube videos addressing concerns surroundingListeriosis contamination.
Youtube and Consumer Response
“United Breaks Guitars”
¡ 3+ Million views in 10 days
¡ “At that moment it occurred to me that I had been fighting a losing battle all this time and that fighting over this at all was a waste of time. The system is designed to frustrate affected customers into giving up their claims and United is very good at it. However, I realized then that as a songwriter and traveling musician I wasn’t without options.” (Dave Carroll)
Communications Technology
¡ Skype
¡ 2008: 405 Million registered users (inc. 47% from 2007)
Application to SCP
¡ How does the organization use technology in its day-to-day operations?
¡ What effect has technology had on growth, productivity, and/ or reputation?
¡ How can technology benefit further the organization, its partners, clients, customers?
¡ Is new technology complemented by old? Face-to-face?
¡ Is technology updated appropriately? Tracked and evaluated?
¡ For business objectives and target audiences?
¡ Is technology used to support flexible and open organizational culture?
¡ Is technology use cost-effective?
¡ Strategy & Tactics: Media choices determine message reception.
¡ Audiences: Appropriate media for appropriate audience.
¡ Budget: ICT versus traditional modes.
