A "quantifiable" conversation

A conversation shows our level of engagement to one another and our level of interest towards a topic. A good conversation between customers might further explore deep underlying issues they have of a brand. This kind of information, therefore, is very valuable. As social media becomes popular, it was easier for companies to get some insights on customers' needs and wants as well as their attitude towards the brand through their online conversations. However, I recognize some difficulties to determine which information is "quantifiable" to use for database.

Social media is useful in a way that it exposes people opinions through their online conversations; it, however, does not monitor the direction of their topics. Sometimes, people just plainly chit-chat because they'd like to. It can be quite hard to get a piece of useful information through forum chatting that might become an endless back-and-forth cycle. The problem is that most people either are not interested enough to share their information or their conversation does not dig a topic deep enough. Therefore, putting conversation with the same topic into groups might not hold up to a valid point/conclusion that can be used for research.

One of the biggest problems with online conversations is that they do not show their original influences. Social media can be topic-oriented and informative but will not qualify for research if having inadequate stimulis. That sounds a bit complicated, no? Let me explain to you. If a customer happen to get his hand on one of a few badly produced product and give complaints through social media, companies should not base on his complaints try to improve the other well-produced products. Knowing the stimuli that leads to a customer's attitude is very important. Social media, however, lacks the ability to explore these stimulis.

I applaud this way of approaching customers. A company that will do well is the one that knows how to please its customers. And how else it is able to do that without getting their opinions. Companies need to figure out how to manipulate the source to get information they want

2008 election-the win (partially) by online communication

As the election of 2008 has ended, I am thrilled that senator Barack Obama had won hands down and is now the president of the United States of America. Never Mr. Barack Obama would have had the same opportunity in my country. This important historically moment shows that raising awareness among voters and young voters particularly is extremely important in presidential election.

As a young person, I am looking for a change. And I, like young American voters believe that Mr. Obama will be the right person. But how did we know all this? It is pointed out that online communication was one of the key influence on the election. I think that Obama won partially is because his "brand" was able to connect to people through support from the Internet better than the brand of John McCain.

According to CNN report (that I watched on TV), most Obama supporters are people of younger generation and online communicating is obviously the best way to reach out to these supporters. Nowadays young people don't even watch TV any more as they busily spend time on the Internet. To raise their awareness, it was very wise of his campaign to use the Internet as an important platform. I was not allowed to vote but I was fully aware of his presentation and his policy in the 2008 election just by going to Facebook.

The reason for failure of John McCain had been speculated as the result from connecting his image with his running mate, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. I am not sure if it is true. But if it is, the internet certain had certainly been the enemy of Mr. McCain's campaign. The association between McCain and Palin was spreaded worldwide becauseI personally have watched so many parodies about them on the Internet. This proves that the Internet could be a potential risk to an image if not being manipulated effectively.

The two facts above show how greatly people can be influenced towards a marketing campaign through the use of the Internet. It is best to take advantage of the online world correctly because it can backfire and result in great damage.

The business of cyber stalking

Nowadays, young people always want to be with their friends and they want to locate each other as fast as possible. One of the example is facebook. There are thousands of students that can't get off the website because they want to get the most updated information about everyone they know. That means mobile social networking will be a huge market undeniably. I noticed that students tend to stick to cell phones as much as they stick to the virtual world. When companies are able to combine these "best friends" of young people, I think they will definitely want that combination.

According to Time magazine, the market is already boiling up with competition. A noticeable trend is that these new "smart" cell phones often come with heavy prices and an extra of monthly service bill. This could lead to customers stepping back from purchasing the products. There are many websites to use connecting to people. The reason that Facebook is incredibly popular because it is free for all users. Young customers might not want to get the new feature on their cell phone because they could use other alternatives to connect to their friends or a destination.

Internet is now a key feature on cell phone, it is easy for consumers to take advantage of mapquest or google earth. The internet service fee has dropped over the years since it becomes available. In addition, I can choose from a lot of phones that are internet friendly. The biggest example is the Iphone. I have seen friends using the Iphone for similar purpose that is similar to mobile social networking. Therefore, companies will have to find a balanced price for the new feature.

Crew member who?

Every time I read an article about teamwork, it always talks about how to manage a team/work with your team members effectively. I have never worked in a corporate job before so I assume that in a company, a crew will get picked out by the manager or human resources. Therefore, it has never come up to me that I will be involved in the process of picking my own crew members and I should find the best way to do that.

In this article, Mindofahustler.com emphasizes the understanding of different types of crew members : the Leader, the Brain, the Anchor and the Soldier aka people that I will have to look for to complete the crew. I think the article brings a wonderful insight of dividing roles in a team. However, it does not help solve the problem of work distribution.

Yes, we all know that it will take many steps to prepare and get the work done and these steps will be connected with every team members.However the work a member did is not always clear such as the leader and the brain. Due to this, work distribution can tarnish the trust between team members.

If I have the choice to pick out my own team, I'd rather pick out those 4 different types of team members and put those with similar specialty. Then I will assign them only one step of the work and let each little team finish their work before putting everything together. In order to diminish problem of distribution, we should not let these different types of members interact too much so they can focus on their own work and stop arguing about problem of work distribution.

Can we go Virtual?

According to Jessica Lipnack and Jeffery Stamps of the Net Age, virtual team will be the next solution to business conference. In their article for Milestone Group, Jessica and Jeffrey suggested several the pros and cons of virtual team. From my understanding, virtual team has two pros and one cons.
Pro: effective for storming
a highly efficient way to transfer information on a non face-to-face level
Cons: require the leader's hard work
I personally do not disagree with their opinion. However, I think that companies will need time to be able to take complete advantage of that kind of team work.

Yes, diversity is crucial for storming ideas, and virtual team certainly can help bring that characteristics to the team and team members. Well we have to remember that virtual team is a non face-to-face way of communication and diversity might not play a good role for the team.

In my opinion, it is harder for team members to communicate with each other online as effectively as in person. Therefore, I think it is still uncertain that a diverse group of people can work well together in a virtual way. Yes, you might argue with me that advanced technology will solve that problem by connecting people through conference calls, webcam etc... Technology, however, has not been able to let team members communicating in a virtual "face-to-face" way.

Why do I insist on the aspect of "face-to-face" communicating?

I experience the problem when I enter a private chat room with friends. Once we start the chat, the conversation might go completely unorganized and it is really hard to control the topic. We experience less the same kind of problem when talking to each other in person. As much leader's work need to be put in as the article mentioned, there is also no proof that team members pay 100% attention to the conference because the leader/organizer himself is not in the same room with these members. Therefore, the leader can not completely control such unexpected elements that occur throughout the conference.

Virtual team is such a new and interesting way of communicating. I think there will be more technology being developed to cater to this kind of communication. One day leaders might not need to put in as much hard work or have problem with organizing conference any more. Why? Because they probably can pint-point the crucial topic and who the lazy guy is. :)

The future of journalism: the online way

These days I don't read papers any more. It just feels lazy when you have to get up and go outside in order to get a news copy, especially in the chilly fall weather of Washington D.C. Therefore, I enjoy staying inside and reading online articles.

There is a certain element of convenience that attract so many people to the online world of journalism. After just a click, readers can get directly to the article without any hassle. The online world is a generous source of information, and I found that sometime the information are completely free. Since marketing companies team up with websites and bloggers, readers don't have to pay to watch/read/use online articles a lot of the times. Because web users are encouraged to look up information online, they found that they can get any particular information of their interest in a much easier manner. Therefore, they appreciate its variety and low cost over print journalism. As a result, newspapers experience their suffer due to the shift in the industry. Lets hear what the expert say:




As mentioned in the video, online journalism faces the lack of credibility as anyone can publish their personal posts. I think that there is probably a chance of getting biased information but it is the choice of readers to determine which websites or blogs to visit. For example, Perezhilton.com is notorious for its juicy tabloid information. Although Perez is a highly opinionated blogger, readers can't help but come back and read his websites. He has no qualification whatsoever for journalism but he is doing it and making profit from it through advertising. According to the above video, we can explain that he speaks with a strong voice that sometimes is hard to find in general publication. In my experience, his writing style has something that I can relate to as it is always fresh and funny.

Evidently, there is a decrease in profit but many people are still interested in reading papers. It will take a long time for them to completely switch to having only online reading habit. For me, I still have strong influence over their established credibility. However, it is hard to imagine the future of these print journalism companies. A lot of them have switched to releasing news from their own website through online subscription. These companies, therefore, need to find a balance between their online and print publishing.

Business online network = The new "Connector"?

As a marketing major, I think that it is very important for job seekers to market themselves in today economy. Finding the right "connector" that links you to the job opportunity is crucial. In order to improve the chances, many professionals are going the online way for job hunting. According to ABC News, websites such as LinkedIn and Ryez.com are helping customers strengthen weak ties with their professional colleagues and getting noticed in the job market. I think that these ideas are very practical and have bright future impact on the job finding path.

A good job opportunity in many times is the result of effective networking. The online way of networking requires users to be presented popularly among professionals in very similar manner of networking in real life. Therefore, they will have to establish a good reputation and makes their name trust-worthy on the market. In order to help consumers present themselves in such sense, online networks for job hunters should be able to provide big pool of professionals and companies. According to the ABC News, online networks for professionals have no problem attract new users but in trouble of keeping users revisit their websites.

Unlike a social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Ryez.com do not give consumers the thrive to check back daily. The less time users spend to stay connected, the weaker the ties with colleagues and companies will be. So as job opportunities. The network, therefore, will lose its core users and fall flat on the market. In order for these websites to become the new "Connector" for professionals, they need to keep their network broad and strong. In my opinion, they should find positive job-related tools to gain consumers' excitement. Once the problem is solved, there is no doubt that these websites are new ways to find jobs

Is Facebook good or bad for you?

I frequent Facebook regularly on a daily basis. When I don't log on, I feel as anxious as if my routine of online activities is not completed. I feel that I will miss to see a new posted comment, a new tagged picture of me, etc. In a way, my life is somewhat controlled by Facebook these day. I can't wait to get on my home page to read what my friends are up to and to see if they are telling each other something that I should know. Facebook creates this whole anxiety of controlling your popularity virtually in hoping it would translate the same to reality.

In my own knowledge, Facebook is an online social network that helps connect users together. The reason I join Facebook is to keep in touch with my friends. However, looking at the politics behind this effective network through "With friends like these..." opens me to many surprises. According to Tom Hodgkinson, the philosophy behind the creater of Facebook brings harmful risks of capitalism. From the perspective of an international marketing major, I think it is purely genius.

This type of online social networking is the exact effective tool for marketers. It helps to control consumer database and provide better information about consumers' needs and wants. In my mentioned experience, Facebook is so addictive. It definitely has the "stickiness factor" ("The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcom Gladwell) that every politicians/marketers try to create in their message. This is not an easy task if we have taken a marketing course. Consumers are hard to predict and their behavior makes an important factor in sales and the like. By obtaining consumer information, we can control how consumers perceive the brand or go as far as change the brand's image.

As discussed in the article, Facebook has some serious harmful ideas through invasive capitalism. In one of my previous posts, I have also contemplate the worthiness of joining Facebook. I think I have stopped my doubts. I think Facebook opens a new way to look at politics and the best way to become "popular". The lesseson learned is that we should never underestimate the virtual world as it does have its power. Furthermore, there is always an "opt in" option. Facebook addicts can not blame the network for their loyal behavior because it is after all their own choices.

Unlike myspace with its way of meeting complete strangers, Facebook has a way to link its users together more effectively and therefore, it becomes more "sticky". I think it is the best way to test human experience. Therefore, we can make good use out of this idea of networking.

Online marketing should become interactive, but what way?

As a shopper, I sometimes find myself wanting to buy a product but still debating whether its plus outweigh its minuses. In that situation, an outside opinion from a friend is often needed.

The idea of social interaction for retailing can be an effective way to address the needs and wants of customers. According to the article "Social retailing-the Future of Retail Online", companies might need consider building a virtual environment for online shoppers as this will help increase their business growth. I do not think that will easy be the case.

In a real shopping environment, shoppers are at the store and able to judge the product effectively. Therefore, they tend to rely more on an outside opinion and are then persuaded to make the purchase. In my opinion, I will not be persuaded to make the purchase unless the opinion comes from someone with reliable expertise. In a virtual environment, companies will have to establish mutual trust between customers in order for the persuading process to happen. In another hand, the social interaction can potentially backfire the companies as the online "word of mouth" ruins the product reputation.

In the article "Conversational Marketing: Can we talk?", social interaction makes more sense because companies themselves can control and select the expertise given to customers through their own channels. For example, I shop online frequently and I appreciate the help of an online sale assistant when evaluating a product. I also find informative business blogs to be very helpful as it is more convenient to keep track of new merchandise that I might want on my "wish list". I think this marketing mechanism is certainly more effective and will be adopted by many companies in the future.

Regardless of how companies making online marketing more interactive, they will have to find a way to inform their customers. Their target should be the young and tech-savvy demographics because these are key to help online mechanism educational

A shocking but not so shocking comment

Reading news on the internet has been my one of my long-time habit. I enjoy getting information from many different sources under a mouse click. It shocks me to learn that the newly awarded Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing thinks otherwise. She concluded the internet seduced a generation and people "know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other" from computer. In my opinion, the internet is the most convenient way for updating your knowledge. Born in the communist environment, I appreciate greatly the educational aspect of the internet. After the Vietnam war, there is a huge resistance of Westernism. Before we reach our current level of information tolerance, I used to rely solely on the internet. Because of online knowledge, I learned so much about other parts of the world. Therefore, I could not comprehend at first the cause of Ms. Lessing's outrageously ignorant comment. As a Nobel award winner, she sounded very disconnected from reality. The Internet has certainly changed how people see the world in the last few decades. It might be not as important in her time but no one can deny its impact. I think her comment is a defense mechanism of older generation not being able to keep up with today technology. And this is nothing new. Therefore, it is a shocking but not so shocking comment.

Will artificial intelligence exceed the human mind?

When I read the article "Artificial Intelligence, with helps from human mind", I am not so surprised that the human mind still is the efficient agent that does most of today work. After all, computer is just additional help to complete programmed tasks. The article discussed the existent online employment where human mind is still the only way despite nowadays computer's ability. How sufficient the job is done, however, is still a question of debate.

In the article, computer users pay for guidance from other computer users to the correct information/website. Their use of "crowd sourcing" sometime results in delay and incorrect information through the experience described by the author. Why do these jobs exist even though computers have become better at info sourcing than human? I think it proves that humans still believe in work done by themselves rather than by machines. As humans, we require the quality of "customer service" when a job is needed to get done. Although technology is becoming more and more advanced, there are certain tasks that computers will never exceed humans because they can not perform a decision making with emotional involvement.

Is joining a virtual world worthy?

I read about virtual world the other day and I think its an awesome way for social networking. I have not tried out any of the systems myself but I am curious about joining "Second life". In the stressful reality world, I sometime have problem meeting other people. In a virtual world, I would be able to meet "fresh" people that are not in my circle or people I probably would never talk to in real life. Therefore, it could be a new way for me to entertain myself and socialize. Sounds awesome! However, I wonder if such an interesting world is time worthy. Online meeting can be very time-consuming and probably will not leave any actual friendships. Unlike social networking websites such as Myspace, virtual world systems let me create my own avatar and control the way I am perceived. As interesting as it sounds, I might not want to actually meet these "friends" in real life because we might not connect as well as we are online. Therefore, participating in a virtual world might just waste my time and internet bill. Another worry of mine is the potential privacy nightmare that an online system might face. Although these virtual worlds claim to be private, there still might be ways to track down users such as through their IP address. Therefore, a virtual world can leave room for stalkers or criminal acts. I think company needs to figure out a way to improve this problem and prove me that they are worthy. Otherwise, virtual world might just not worth to join

Thin Issue pt 2

Obesity is not the only weight issue that caught my notice. A handful of my favorite fashion magazines such as Teen Vogue, Allure, and Cosmopolitan recently have talked about the opposite issue of obesity: young women suffering from anorexia and bulimia. To emphasize the importance of these problems, they discussed about a Brazilian model who died because of anorexia, a problem she had developed while trying to get work. Moreover, an association of Spanish designers has recently decided to start measuring models’ body mass index and to stop using underweight models. It was a warning not only for models but also for average people in the United States.

Those warnings worried me because, initially, I was just concerned about my weight to be accepted by people and fit into nice clothes. I constantly checked my body in the mirror, and stepped on the scale. I wanted to make sure that I was not having any serious health issues because I have to take care of myself while I am living alone in the United States. When I was completely sure that I was healthy, I asked myself: “Is it still acceptable to be normal and thin?” Society has a conflicting view of what the healthy body should be. They consider people with extra body fat unhealthy but do not appreciate stick-thin people either. In the end, I am still stuck in between, and I do not want to be on either extreme.

When I decided to do something about my weight, not only I felt mentally exhausted but scared because I felt forced to become something which was not who I am. Where is the beauty of my individuality? If I changed accordingly, I would become a part of the next army of clones. But would it satisfy me? That is when I realized I was betraying a fundamental part of my DNA.

Our lifestyle is what makes us look beautiful and feel healthy, not what we see and hear in the media. When I look at the French, they eat almost the same food we do, only theirs is fresher and consumed in smaller quantities. Therefore, they live healthy lives with fewer issues. Because obesity and anorexia come from an unhealthy lifestyle, we need to take care of ourselves properly. We need to embrace what nature gives us: a healthy body and an active mind. I am committed myself to being normal and thin…in a big way.

Is Facebook a new useful tool for business? (part 1)

Yesterday I read two articles talking about Facebook potentials in business management and advertisement. It is quite interesting to see how a student-friendly social network can be used in different aspects of the business world. Because I am a business major, I hopefully will be able to apply these benefits in my work in the future.

In the article "Real world social network vs. facebook social network" , Clive Thompson claimed that Facebook social network is more effective than real life social network. He explained that Facebook will help eliminating the "weak link" (a person who does most of the work but is not repsonsible for it) in a real life social network. I agree with his point because I have experienced this benefit by using Facebook. Because Facebook is able to expose the general activities in your circle of friends (mini-feed), shows which friend is connected (online facebook chat) and introduce users to "people you may know", the social network is great at linking you to the person that has information in your company. Therefore, data mining becomes easier and the company network is tightened effectively. Although Thomspon warned us about the dilemma of losing data and privacy, I do no think companies will face too much problem with the way social networks like Facebook work. Facebook has ben introducing more ways of protecting its customer privacy by providing feature for limited profile or only connecting people with similar network, interests and workload. Now users can work on their own page and choose who they want to be exposed to and can still find the "friend" that they might need. I think these features will work the same in a company network.

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My first blog post

On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own.

Thin Issue pt 1

I am thin and have always been. It is probably due to my fast metabolism as an Asian. I never noticed any serious issues about weight until I moved to the United States three years ago.

In Vietnam, the word “obesity” is not a common word. While I was growing up I almost never heard it. In the United States, though it is not a strange topic. A significant number of American magazines that I read regularly had featured articles about the danger of obesity, losing weight and related topics. The issue gained my interest so I decided to do some research about it. According to The American Obesity Association, approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese. In fact, the number of Americans whose health is jeopardized by too much weight is growing alarmingly and becoming part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' health agenda. The information completely shocked me. I could not believe that obesity was now recognized as “a neglected health problem” in the United States. The more I understood the danger of obesity, the more I realized how much I had been unaware of my weight.

When I first moved to the United States, I lost twenty pounds due to the difference of food and weather. After a year, I stopped losing weight and stayed at my one hundred and twenty pounds. In Vietnam, my weight would be normal in comparison to that of other males my age; however, in the United States, people commented that I was way too thin. It was the first time that someone else was concerned about my body shape. Because I was shorter, thinner and less athletic then the average American young male, people did not recognize me as a college student and thought that I was having a health problem. It was always a hassle to find clothes that were cut appropriately for my body type. When I was surrounded by Americans, I felt like an unhealthy outcast. It had a big effect on my self confidence and my communication with other students.

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