news from womens enews on technology 12/31/10

I read this news service regularly..


By Amy Neustein
WeNews correspondent

Women may not always be avid adopters of new technology, but Amy
Neustein says cloud computing is something to know about. The emerging
technology's voice-recognition applications may soon save lives along
with everyday aggravation.

http://www.womensenews.org/story/media-stories/101227/cloud-computing-promises-hi-tech-talk-in-2011

Women's eNews

Final Project: Social Media Class

Final Project, December 31, 2010

Interviews with Jorie Waterman on Social Media and Advertising

Conversations over the last few years with Jorie Waterman have been informative about the digital world that she began exploring after college. This rapidly expanding field of connections offered unconventional experience with novel networks that have touched on and driven changes in business, culture, and the society in which we live and function in ways that were not built or imagined a generation earlier. Having her first exposure to a home computer at age eleven in 1984 shortly after Apple came out with the first personal Macintosh computer in 1983 (Katz, 2008, p.8), Jorie’s fascination with what would become her professional career journey was sparked. In high school her calculus teacher who was keeper of the computer with special, select access to academic research that was becoming increasingly available on the Internet, opened her eyes and mind further. At seventeen, Jorie had the opportunity of being present, observing, and listening to the dialogue of a gathering of world scholars from many disciplines at a Lindisfarne Conference on the Web and Chaos Theory. She recounted that it was there that she heard conversations, that peaked her curiosity and wonder, on the potential power of the web and what it could become, and has indeed become twenty years later. Graduating from Harvard with a major in Comparative Religion with a focus in Buddhism and having been raised in the art world of New York and Europe, Jorie found her natural choices in the job market practically non-existent. Opportunities were in start up companies, which were computer/Internet based, there she gained experience and expertise that attracted the attention of Microsoft and precipitated a move to Seattle. Jorie’s drive to know more and be on the cutting edge of her field brought her back East, where she is now, and in the position of SVP Director of Search for McCann Worldgroup (McCann Relationship Marketing/ MRM), which is the digital arm of the advertising firm. Not only does she speak to audiences and clients worldwide, Jorie has just become part of a small group of strategists, one of the only women and the youngest, which considers ways to meet the demands of today’s digital world.
It is clear why I consider Jorie a valuable source of information, as she is a leader in developing strategies on the Internet for major companies worldwide. She reflected that in businesses the key is “finding how to start the conversation between the consumer and the company”. “Yes, it is social media”, said Jorie, because people use the Internet search engines to “search for information and problem solve”, therefore it is about them and companies “research people” to better meet there interests and needs. On the positive side, advertising has used Internet to find out what information people are looking for, what language they use to search for it, and how to get this specific information to them easily and quickly. Targeting audiences according to their behaviors has driven technology to gather all sort of data, come up with the most universally used keywords to guide a search, and make the search in Microsoft terms as “easy as breathing”. Knowing more about clients helps companies provide desired services. Jorie noted that although there is a lot of free information as well as programs out there, “advertising will continue to drive economics” with “on-line display advertising and search marketing”.
One of the problems in this age of massive amounts of information out there that Jorie mentioned, as did authors in Katz’s edited book, The Tower and The Cloud (2008), is that of sorting the information and data and making sense of so much that is available, which requires staffing and large time commitments. Another consideration for businesses and research that she pointed out was that it is difficult to “preselect your audience” as response is open to anyone on the Internet. In educational/academic research it may be important to know whom you are reaching and who is responding, unless it is a random sample. Blogs are potential ways to find those interested in certain topics or who want to share voluntarily their stories. There are support groups for veterans, illnesses, and specific interests, which allows the social aspects of the Internet to connect people directly with each other. Many health oriented institutions and treatment centers have offered this as a service follow up for patients and could do more in follow up after treatments. Individuals reaching out for first-hand information, which is a form of checking and cross-referencing information, have started Blogs and websites of their own. Jorie felt that there was great potential for heath care and for individual therapeutic work once a relationship had been established. She envisioned being able to use an iPhone or other phones to connect with a voice messaging service of a therapist in the middle of the night or when traveling and have that message and immediate concern stored and available for the therapist to respond quickly and from another location. The addition of video now available on new Smart phones and today Skype announced their extended services on phones, she felt seeing each other in real time would make a difference in maintaining a more personal connection.
Apparently, there are tools out there for same room conferencing where different voices would be selected when talking and audible to those gathered in another conference center elsewhere. The word “communities” was used to refer to different groups with like fields or interests. The communal aspect of many tools, such as Skype or VoiceThread, makes communication personable and fosters relationships at great distances with family and others. Certainly on-line learning would benefit from more of these personal discussion opportunities rather than the record of email, which serves that purpose, but leaves out the possibility of human relating in a significantly more satisfying way. There is also the argument for strangers connecting, which has its social and business advantages for some, but can be easily abused by others, as we have learned in cyber bullying and illegal and immoral avenues being opened and often preying on minors or vulnerable populations.
This leads to the issue of privacy and knowing how much to share when aliases, symbols and avatars can be used creatively, or not, as surrogates for real and authentic people and interaction. How does one know who is there? Are they trustworthy? Are they an impostor, a fraud? Privacy settings are available and Jorie felt people need to be mindful of them and set them for protection. Professional sites such as LinkedIn are select for specific interests. We discussed the fact that Facebook pages are out there and one has to be conscious of who can look at them and what one posts and which friends, clients or business associates you choose to give access to your information, caution is advisable. She mentioned a company called Bluekai that is a leader in “consumer privacy and good business ethics”. It is possible to find out free from them what information has been gathered, primarily through cookies, about individuals including yourself and remove it. Controlling your profile and checking what is out there about you goes for all ages. For example, how one is identified can be tracked by college admissions searches or effect job opportunities as personal information stays out there. Young people may not be aware of the ramifications of having personal information available for all to see and for how long?
For Jorie and me the discussion of ethical standards starts with the individual and their intentions, but there are ethical business practices that she mentioned that are available through links to various industries codes of ethics that can be found on the Direct Marketing Association Site (DMA). She felt that for the most part businesses were trustworthy and regulated in this country. Her concern was that about pharmaceutical companies are regulated in this country which keeps them limited in advertising on the Internet due to the vast amount of information that is required of them that can not be accommodated on the Internet, which gives unregulated or foreign companies more visibility and availability to searchers on the Internet. This brings up the question about unregulated drugs, in particular as to what information is available, is it reliable, and has it been tested for what it claims. The public has access to reliable as well as fraudulent information in a global information age, now they decipher it is a question. Other countries do not have the regulatory agency that we do which gives them an advantage on the open market place that is now international. Also, cultural practices and standards vary worldwide. This further opens the global network to illegal and immoral minds and practices, which is beyond the scope of this discussion, but was recently discussed at the United Nations in a panel I attended on the profitable and expanding illegal business of human and drug trafficiting.
The fact is that our world over the last sixty years (Katz, 2008, p.6) has become connected globally by the Internet and instant information is available regardless of the time zone. With more devices that are inexpensive and available it is staggering to assess the impact that this is having at any moment, as updates are constant. Authors writing on this is Katz’s edited book (2008) discuss the ramifications for institutions of higher education that have been evolving from religious and guild beginnings according to Katz’s historical account for over a thousand years. The “tower” metaphor for the exalted, often removed place of knowledge building (Katz, 2008, p.3) was juxtaposed with the “cloud” image which is symbolic of the worldwide web (WWW) which lacks the boundaries of a physical space and the concentration of scholars in close proximity. The positive side to this is possibility of sharing, coordinating, and collaborating globally. Katz used the phrase “maturation of virtualization technology” (2008, p. 11) which presented issues that education as well as all aspects of information transmission will more and more address. With information more available to many people in potentially every culture, the possibilities of learning are more egalitarian and individually prescribed. I can’t help but think this may be helpful to women and others without financial or practical means who have been denied education in many cultures. Institutions of higher learning are indeed challenged to respond beyond their halls and communities of scholars. Benkler (2008) writes of “decentralization” (p.51), Katz and others speak of “disruption” (2008, p.13), “bundling” and “unbundling” (p.4), others write about shifts, changes, cultural differences, economic issues, indeed the ramifications of “the networked information economy and society” (Benkler, 2008, p.51) are provocative on all levels. With this new open frontier that seems limitless, endlessly creative, spontaneous and collaborative comes the call for standards, protection, privacy and whose rules?
Jorie credits her college education where she was exposed to the best scholars in a small group of three other students for four years with giving her the thinking tools to know what questions to ask and ask them relentlessly. She felt that she also saw and heard different perspectives and learned to respect them. The work she is doing now draws on the ability to understand “how people think”, how they go about “solving problems”, and her knowing that “people are actively looking to solve problems”. She laughed as she described her work as “digital anthropology” which encapsulates her problem of sorting through vast amounts of material and more staff to help to do it. I do think that doctoral students are empathic to this and hope for the development of better and easier tools for doing research, storing it, and assessing it at key moments in their thinking and writing in order to synthesize and focus their learning which is the key in communicating their findings. How to get research out there and credited is indeed of concern for institutions, peer journals, libraries, publications and those scholars, writers and creative thinkers and artists who originate and document sources in traditional ways. Finally, our conversations in which Jorie used the term “social media properties” of the WWW, which are influencing society, relationships, the brain, business ect., came full circle to the need to “know when to turn things off” and “balance” life with and without technology. She said that she works generally a fourteen-hour day “communicating” and has learned to be “respectful” of the benefits of the Internet and mindful of the distractions it also provides. Prioritizing communication, archiving emails every 6 months, and not having messaging at home help with time management and just clearing the space. Perhaps we do need to respect and have our own sanctuaries for contemplation, music, art and just being that are without in her words, “constant bombardment”. The excitement of finding “new innovative media” that is out there and feeling “overwhelmed” has to be put aside, said Jorie, to have real time with friends, go to the gym, read, and enjoy her cats. She surmised that the Internet is tied to language and thinking in language, and now translations are easily available in many languages. Explicit or factual knowledge today has been opened to participatory involvement on the Internet, true or false? I was refreshed to be reminded of tacit knowledge (Attis, 2008, p. 81), that which we know, but don’t have words for. As I read the discourses on what has been described as the “cloud computing” (Katz, 2008) culture into which we are webbed, it seems this reality is put in dramatic, frantic terms that describe our changing, expanding world. As the year comes to a end and this class is coming to a close, I am indeed more knowledgeable and curious about tools that have been discovered, are being instantaneously refined, and new ones being developed to allow for searches specific and useful in the dissertation endeavor. The draw is that I don’t yet know what I will discover, what I will look for as the process evolves, or what contexts will expand my horizons.

Postscript
I would like to thank Jorie Waterman for her time and this rich discussion, which has helped me enlarge my perspective beyond academic consideration and into other worlds going on simultaneously. Her ethical, educated, and envisioned stance is admirable and encouraging for our future on the ground and in the skies.

Jorie Waterman’s Bio
Jorie Waterman, SVP Director of Search
McCann Worldgroup (McCann Relationship Marketing)

Jorie Waterman joined MRM in January of 2009 and leads the New York Search practice for MRM Worldwide. She has worked with clients across many verticals: Financial Services, Technology, Retail, Automotive, CPG, Travel, and more. A select list of clients includes: Chase, Bank of America, American Express, Citibank, Mastercard, GEIP, Alleghany, Diageo, General Mills, Colgate, Unilever, the U.S. Army, Exxon Mobil, Chrysler & GM.
Immediately prior to MRM she was at Microsoft adCenter leading efforts around keyword data. Jorie went to Microsoft to work with adLabs, the R&D division of Microsoft Advertising, working with leading mathematicians, engineers, data analysts, and taxonomists on next generation advertising technology. While there she helped develop the Keyword Services Platform, Web services for keyword demand and demographic data. Additionally, she led product planning for the Targeting platform – tapping into years of keyword research and search data experience as a major behavioral factor in targeting algorithms.
Jorie’s search career started in 1999 with Comet Systems, one of the Overture and Google’s first partners, now part of MIVA and eventually led her to iCrossing. At iCrossing she served as Senior Director, Search Analytics, spearheading methodologies such as Linguistic Profiling to drive actionable online marketing strategies from keyword data.
Jorie graduated from Harvard with a degree in Comparative Religion and has an advanced degree from the Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. Jorie speaks fluent Spanish, and has reading knowledge of French, Latin, and Olde English.

















References
Attis, D. (2008). Higher education and the future of U.A. Competitiveness. In R. Katz, (Ed.), The tower and the cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing (pp.81-87). Campanile: University of California, Berkeley.
Benkler, Y. (2008). The university in the networked economy and society: Challenges and opportunities. Chapter in R. Katz, (Ed.), The tower and the cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing (pp. 51-61). Campanile: University of California, Berkeley.
Katz, R. (2008). The tower and cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing. EDUCAUSE Retrieved, May 1, 2010 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB7202.pdf.
Waterman. J. (2010, December 29). Interviewed by S.P. Firestone [MP3 recording, privately held, available], Social Media Class 10-FA GWKSP.7888.01, Lesley University Ph.D. Low-Residency Program in Expressive Therapies. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA.
Waterman. J. (2010, December 11). Interviewed by S.P. Firestone [MP3 recording, privately held, available], Social Media Class 10-FA GWKSP.7888.01, Lesley University Ph.D. Low-Residency Program in Expressive Therapies. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA.

A digital U-Tube Nativity

A friend sent me this link and I thought the class might relate to it! Hope this does not offend as it is meant to bring good cheer for the end of the year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA

Dec. 13 to Dec. 28th 2010

Social Media Blog: News from Several Sources: December 2010

There is so much information out there on social media that my newspapers, magazines, email, list serves, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn and all other connections I may have that I know of, plus those that I don’t know of are overflowing! For me this year has exploded with ACCESS to my known areas of interest to many more that I am now aware of and following... I am staying up later to be informed about friends, sales, deals, entertainment, and all the opportunities that I might be missing if I don’t check! I don’t know about you, but I am still trying to save articles of interest in their original format in case I want to reference them in research or come back to them and reread the information or story more carefully. My files, real and virtual are expanding in the midst of my studio which has several works in progress—when I have the time to focus on them and get into the “flow state” that the creative process brings to me and others who know how to access this state of knowing that draws of another aspect of the brain. Information processing, storage, and small bites seem to tap one or more correctly many resources we humans have and what emotional involvement that we are capable of as well? Simple answers are not possible as evidenced by history and the robust studies in for example one area, neuroscience, which seem to rely on pictures to tell us?? How the brain thinks? How the brain remembers? How the brain handles trauma? Who “reads”, “knows”, “interprets” images and in what language from what cultural context? As we as curious creatures investigate our world inside and out the story becomes even more fascinating that we can imagine.. and we can imagine more that we can do, which droves us on to new discoveries. I can only speak for myself, this is an amazing time to be alive and to have the opportunity to experiment with the tools that are available to us.

For instance, these are a few stories covering a variety of interests, which are using the Internet to go further. Some from The New York Times since I last visited this blog:

12/28/10: Business Day: Scrutiny for Shares of Start-Ups is a article (p. B1, B5) by Peter Lattman in which he notes that the S.E.C. is interested in the trades that are increasing in the social-networking companies, Twitter, Facebook, LindedIn, and Zynga which are all still privately held, i.e. that is not listed on the public stock exchange. Shares are being sold by employees hoping to cash in and investors are speculating as there has been so much $ made and trading is increasing. According to this author these companies are “considered high-risk securities by the S.E.C.” (p. B5). The trading exchange company handling these trades of nonpublic companies is SmartMarket and it is stated here that Facebook is the “most actively traded company..in which $40 million worth of shares changed hands” (p.B5).

12/28/10: Front Page: Cheats Find an Adversary in Technology. Writer, Trip Gabriel writes an interesting article about high school students in Mississippi who had cheated on final exams by using their cellphones, some even texting through their pockets so that proctors could not observe. Companies can now do all sorts of data analysis to determine who is cheating. Red flags turn up when scores differ from previous scores, when a group of students all get correct or incorrect answers and more. Apparently, when students know about this and know they could get caught, the cheating goes down. John Fremer, who is now 71 and helped develop the SAT tests, is a co-founder of Caveon Test Security, which is said to be the only company that has developed security measures to detect cheating. The article goes on to present critics who raise questions that this company has not published in scholarly journals their methods and therefore has not been reviewed. The rebuttal is that they are very busy with clients policing testing and blogs that violate copyright under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Mr. Fremer says that his goal is “prevention” and “fair and valid testing” (p. A1, A3).

12/28/10: The Arts: Patricia Cohen’s article, Scholars Recruit Public for Project: Online Volunteers Transcribe Papers, calls attention to the fact that many original documents by philosophers, scholars, historians, and individuals are not available due to the arduous job of transcription which costs and is extremely time consuming. She writes of The Bentham Project at University College London, which has turned to “crowd-sourcing” (p. C1) as a way of tackling more than 40,000 documents which are unpublished manuscripts by using registered or volunteers users who then transcribe works that are then corrected by editors. Needless to say there are advocates and those from the scholarly field who raise questions, but it is pointed out that this would make so much more available in the humanities where historical and personal documents could be accessible to scholars. See nytimes.com/books for other articles that have been looking at “digital tools that are changing scholarship in history, literature and the arts.” (p. C4).

12/28/10: International: WikiLeaks Founder Signs Deal to Write Autobiography, (p.A8). Ravi Somaiya reports from London that Assange, who is in a “mansion” awaiting a hearing on Jan. 11 for charges brought against him by two women in Stockholm for “rape, unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation over a four-day period last August”, has signed a book deal for his autobiography. Potentially this could be worth $1.7 million, which Mr. Assange is quoted as saying he needs for his lawyers. The British counterpart of Random House, Alfred A. Knopf as well as Canongate Books are said to have signed printing deals with the Australian founder of WikiLeaks. In February, Daniel Domscheit-Berg who was the deputy to Assange will come out with his story in Germany of what went on before he left the WikiLeaks at the end of summer.

12/27/10: Business Day: Technology: Bits: Apple Removes WikiLeaks Apps. Miguel Helft writes that Apple spokeswoman, Trudy Muller, confirmed that the company had removed the WikiLeaks apps for iPhones and iPads because it “violated our developed guidelines....Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or group in harm’s way.” (p. B4). It is reported that many companies, such as: PayPal, MasterCard, Amazon, and Visa have “cut off services that in some way support WikiLeaks or channel money to the organization” (p. B4).

12/21/10: Front Page: In Youthful World of Messaging, E-Mail Gets Instant Makeover. Matt Richel reports on Facebook’s updating it messaging service to “feel less like e-mail and more like texting”, which will make it faster and be more instantly gratifying. Bosworth, director of engineering, is quoted as saying, “the future of messaging is more real time, more conversational and more casual...The medium isn’t the message. The message is the message.” (p.A1).

12/22/10: Business Day: To Match Profit with Popularity, Skype Looks to New Markets. Verne G. Kopytoff points out that while Skype is one of the most used Internet services in the seven years of its existence with 124 million users, it does not make money because it is free to users. There is a new CEO, Tony Bates of the company headquartered in Luxembourg, who is looking into faster and extended services. It was founded in 2003 as an alternative to expensive telephone costs by a Swede, Zennstrom and a Dane, Friis (p.B1,B2) and sold to eBay and now is mostly owned, 70%, by the Silver Lake Partners. Since many of us use Skype, let’s hope they find a way to stay in business.

12/17/10: Business: A Call for a Federal Odffice to Guide Online Privacy (p. B3). Tanzina Vega reports that he Commerce Department’s task force has advised that a “Privacy Bill of Rights should be created for consumers who are on line as well as a department that is sensitive to U.S. privacy issues worldwide. How information is gathered online would be more “transparent” and an ethical code of conduct would aim to better “practice principles”. The F.T.C. also addressed practice and also emphasized “do not track” options for consumers to prevent third parties to gather data on them. Gary Locke, the Secretary of Commerce stressed the need for preserving “consumer trust in the evolving Internet economy while ensuring the Web remains a platform for innovation, jobs and economic growth” (p.B3). The department estimates that $10 trillion a year is spent on online transactions globally.

12/16/10: Building Case for Conspiracy By Wikileaks by Charlie Savage (Front page, A18). Searching for any evidence of collusion between Pfc. Manning and Assange, the Justice Department investigates possible conspiracy.

12/12/10: Week in Review: Keeping Secrets WikiSafe (Front page, 5). Scott Shane recounts events of “three big WikiLeaks document dumps since July” of classified government documents, “disguised as a Lady Gaga CD”, that Pfc. Bradley Manning “smuggled out of a military intelligence office” (p.1). The story begins .... and will unfold.

Time Magazine’s cover on December 13^th had a full page photo of Julian Assange with an American flag taped across his mouth. In the same issue, p. 19, several people who were honorees for 2009 for “Person of the Year”, Ben Bernanke got it, were asked for their suggestions for 2010.

Michael Eavis who is the Founder of Glastonbury Festival chose Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, because “her performance and skill on the world stage have impressed people of all races and genders, and she has added so much to American status and pride..”.

Youk Chhang, who is the Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, suggested Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk of Cambodia because she “is the embodiment of resilience, a beautiful woman who has endured countless hardships with dignity and courage. Through her, we can learn about colonialism, independence, civil was, genocide, democratization and the quest for justice. Her life too will teach us about the complex history of Cambodia, a country often overlooked.”

John C. Bogle, who is Founder of the Vanguard Group, suggested David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, because of the “bold steps to a) build a ‘big society,’ demanding that citizens take greater responsibilities for the communities, and b) set forth a really tough fiscal policy, slashing government expenditures...”.

Mia Farrow, “actress and activist”, suggested Mo Ibrahim who is from the Sudan and has a foundation in London and is described as a “mobile-communications entrepreneur”. The foundation “provides a huge annual prize for responsible leadership in Africa, promotes the peace process in Darfur and security, the rule of law and human rights across Africa. No one has done more to promote peace and food governance in a continent torn apart by corruption, poverty, and violence.”

The December 27^th edition of TIME had the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, “The Connector”, on the cover as the Person of the Year 2010. Time’s Managing Editor, Richard Stengel, comments are in his article, Only Connect. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebok are changing how we interact – and what we know about each other” (p. 43). He writes, “Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world. For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them (something that has never been done before); for creating a new system of exchanging information that has become both indispensable and sometimes a little scary; and finally, for changing how we all live our lives in ways that are innovative and even optimistic, Mark Eliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year.” In his editorial (p. 8) he mentions his visit to Palo Alto and talk with Zuckerberg on Dec.. 8^th which can be found at TIME.com.

In this same issue of TIME, Lev Grossman (p. 44-75) had done a thorough job on the life, personality, and style of Zuckerman as well as incredible statistics on just how Facebook has and is changing our lives and what is happening around our world in real time. Certainly, my views and interests have expanded with my exposure and use of just some of information that is assessable to me. As the end the year approaches and writers and journalists peruse the changes, the events, the discoveries, and the losses of the passing year, I particularly will miss the artist, Louise Bourgeois, who passed away at 98, and is quoted as saying, “Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said.” (p. 149)

Sent by email: An artist’s concern...

-----Original Message-----

From: Laurie Arbeiter <larbeiter@hotmail.com>

Sent: Thu, Dec 23, 2010 9:24 am

Subject: Gagosian atrocity

Helloall,

Iam writing to alert people about an incident that happened at the Gagosiangallery Saturday, December 18, 2010, on the last day of the Anselm Kieferexhibition, Next Year In Jerusalem. Anselm Kiefer. Next Year in Jerusalem November 6 - December 18, 2010 ... Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “Next Year in Jerusalem,” Anselm Kiefer's ...

www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2010-11-06_anselm-kiefer/ - Cached

Inresponse to the title of the exhibition and the content of the work a smallgroup of artists and activists decided to view the show wearing a shirt with the wordsNext Year In Jerusalem in the three languages Arabic, Hebrew and English. We spent about one to two hours looking at the exhibition, mainly individually,silently and respectfully with full consideration of others viewing the exhibition. We simply worethe words on our shirts and did not engage with anyone unless they struck up aconversation with us. A number of peopleasked some of us about the meaning of the message, gave positive feedback, showed interest, asked where they could get the shirts oroccasionally questioned our political attitude toward Israel and Palestine. Wemade it clear to those who asked that we were not affiliated with the galleryand this was our own personal response to the work. All our conversations wereat a low level, similar to all the other visitors talking with one anotherwhile viewing the show. We neverhad an incident, raised our voices, disrupted anyone, and were not approachedby the multitudes of guards that were there. We took photographs as waspermitted and similar to many other people photographing the work and eachother without flash or disruption to people's passage.We thought we were in anarena of ideas and that words on a t-shirt without any other provocation would be an acceptable method of free expression in response to Kiefer's work. We were so very wrong. Afterabout one and a half hours, half of our group left and four of us remained tocontinue to view the show. Iwalked around on my own looking at the work. I noticed that two other visitorshad engaged two of my friends in a conversationthat was lasting a long time. Curious, I wandered over to where they werestanding to join them. The atmosphere in the gallery was very peaceful andcalm. The conversation that they had struck-up was warm and all of them were very interested talking together. Suddenly, out ofnowhere, two representatives from the gallery approached us. Oneof them asked who our leader was. It was an odd question and Iresponded that we had no leader. She then asked us who was in charge. And again I emphasized that no one was incharge and said that there was nothing happening. She then said that she had toask us to leave the gallery. We, including the lovely couple we had just met,were dumbfounded. At that point, the gallery employee ordered the guards, the same ones that had observed us forclose to two hours with no incident, to surround us and escort us out. I told her that there was no reason to have usremoved. The gallery employee explained that they had received complaints about the words on our shirt, which were causing confusion, and therefore we would have toleave. We then decided to cover thelanguage even though it was very disturbing to do so and we did thisreluctantly, understanding the profound irony against theback-drop of the Kiefer exhibition which embodies a life's work supposedlyconcerned with the horrors of state-sponsored repression, the brutality ofoccupation, racism, abuse of power, fascism and the consequences offorgetting history, not allowing for keen reflection in regard to currentstrains of unchecked power. I mentioned to the gallery employees that I thoughtwe were in the realm of ideas inside the gallery space to which she repliedthat it was a private gallery in the business of selling art and that theywanted us to leave. On principle, something no longer that valued or defendedin the public or private sector, we stayed, acting again in no way that couldbe deemed disruptive. The guards went back to their corners and we went back toour conversation. We thought that the incident was over. To all our shock,several minutes later the police arrived and completely disrupting the calmatmosphere in the gallery began to order us to leave and threatened us witharrest for trespassing.

Withinminutes after the police arrived an incident unfolded that could only bedescribed as brutal. Upon reflection, it waslike a staged scene, depicting what happens when the very forces Kiefer warns us about go unchecked.The police came on very strong and at first directed their warning at us,overseen by the gallery personnel, who pointed us out to them. I asked them toexplain the complaints being made against us and rationale for our expulsion.The only explanation given was that it was a private space just like one's homeand that we were no longer welcome and would need to leave. A woman witnessingthe event and standing at a distance to my left, who I did not know, asked for an explanation as to what washappening. The police officer was very rude and belligerent to her. All this unfolded rather quickly, withinseconds and suddenly I saw him grab her forcefully, pinching the muscle of herarm as he began to drag her from the gallery.It was shocking as she was screaming that she was being hurt and yet he wouldn't remove his grip. Iheard her cry in pain all the way out as she was being removed to the entrance.I couldn't see what happened behind the wall between us but have heard anaccount from another witness that she fell to the floor and wasdragged all the way to the door and outside on the floor by the police without complaint and in full view of thegallery personnel. She was badly bruised and needed medical attention and was taken to ahospital emergency room.

Theseare the facts of my experience as it unfolded. It was and still is traumatizingto recount and to attempt to grapple with all the implications of these eventsunfolding against the backdrop of the Anselm Kiefer exhibition. What happened there can not be explained away simply by thegallery stating that theyreceived complaints. The question should be asked by whom? What was the content of those complaints? What wasthe confusion they pointed to and why couldn't the gallery personnel clearthose issues up? What warranted setting into motion this course of action thatled to a brutal assault by the police andthe shutting down of ideas and speech embodied on a personalt-shirt? These (art) corporations are about money - rank andextreme consumerism. That they invoke theculture of private property as justification for their repression of inconvenient thoughts and ideas mustnot obscure the fact that they have no rightto cause actual physical harm tomembers of the public or to violate the rights of that public. Our peaceful engagement with the Kiefer exhibition was not a demonstration that day in thegallery but the gallery deserves now to be shown what a real demonstration looks like in response to what it did.

I can only wonder what Anselm Kiefer would have to say about whathappened in his exhibition because of the presence of those words that inspiredhim and led to an inspired idea, Next Year In Jerusalem strung together inArabic, Hebrew and English?

Please pass this on and feel free to contact me with any thoughts.Thanks to all those who have shown concern.

Laurie Arbeiter

December 15, 2010 As the year is coming to a close..

I am thinking back on finding a language in which to communicate...other than words..... and I had to take drawing and learn from there how to make art. Looking at things I wanted to draw and was familiar with and then at those I had no idea about how to represent. Learning a skill was a job, a training the hand as well as the eye to observe what was out there and some how make a copy of it? A likeness was not easy for me, particularly at first, but I began to notice that I liked to adjust things according to my own view. That realization that I could have my own view of things coupled with the emotional, empathic, and expressionistic gestures gave me a world in which to live and be that was my own and quite apart from what is named cognitive learning. Sensing that there was an implicit realm that was fascinating and ever full of wonder within my imagination was a new beginning, a new journey that had started very young and in nature.
Education and socialization and life took off and it was only after college that I knew that I had to get back to that place of knowing and find out who I had become and who I wanted to be in this world. Art school? several art schools... looking for learning and wisdom out there and from many.. only to find that yes, there are tools, yes others use them, teach them, are masterful with them, but I wanted to choose and explore for myself even if it do not come out so gloriously. I wanted to find my own way and gather what I needed along the way. The art making told me things about how I was seeing and experiencing the world that I did not know until after making the pieces in whatever medium was needed to communicate at that time, that moment. There was always more to know as the world and people are everly fascinating and I wanted and still want to open doors and find new pathways..
This brings me to the present moment. New tools on the Internet, on my Apple computer, that are useful for making art, writing about my work, gathering information, working with images, and communicating with friends and others. The possibilities are truly endless. As I am consumed in words and becoming more at ease with speaking my voice in type, I am wanting to get back to images and see what I can do there. The back and forth seems enriching and calls..

December 8-14

Social Media Journal Blog: 12-8-14, 2010 I want to bring to your attention the views of Nicholas Carr, author of Does IT Matter: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (2004) published by Harvard Business School Publishing Press, and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which I have on audio. The following podcast on Carr’s recent talk at The National Academy of Sciences here in New York is fascinating as he has researched and presented some of the effects of the last twenty years of the Internet’s existence on our society and ourselves. In his book, Does It Matter, he reviews the history of inventions that changes business practices, not to mention society. Here he reviews businesses that acquired technology early which gave them a distinct advantage and the present time when most all businesses have technology because everyone does. The point he makes is that that advantage is no longer there as technology has become commonplace, and a business must just have it, as it has become a cost of doing business. Really fascinating is the second book in which he has researched and has definite conclusions on technology changing the brain. Carr points out recent research which finds that the brain that was in the past thought of as fixed in development relatively early by today’s standards is indeed “plastic” meaning that it can form new pathways and continue to expand particularly when challenged with new endeavors. He feels that given this information, the brain will certainly be changed with people using technology more and more. He used the term “adaptive” in relation to the brain changing with repeated experiences. Statistics are given as to the number of hours people are spending on the Internet and several effects noted were the shortened attention span, multitasking and the effect on working memory being that short term memory is not taking in learning in such a way as it goes into long term memory. Our long-term memory is our repository of learning according to Carr. Please listen to this podcast for further and more a more in- depth discussion. Nicholas Carr: Nat. Academy of Sciences: podcast.. http://ne.edgecastcdn.net/000210/podcasts/120310carr.mp3 New York Academy of Sciences: www.nyas.org http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Media/VideoDetail.aspx?cid=ecb4b4d5-248a-40fa-a945-b753437f9400 This is a terrific site and I often go to the lectures which at 4 World Trade Center, next to Ground Zero. It is a new building built after 9/11 and has fantastic views of Manhattan from the 40th floor. Amazing scientists talk on their research. They have a 6 part series that I went to the first session, To Be Or Not To Be, on Tuesday called : Perspectives on the Self: Conversations on Identity and Consciousness, that is funded by The Nour Foundation, which is well worth looking up as they are a 35 yr. old foundation connected to the UN Economic and Social Council. Their spokesman said that their purpose was “to explore meaning and commonality... (with a) multidisciplinary (focus)... that combines science and humanity” (NAS lecture attended, Dec. 7, 2010). During the question and answer period, one question asked the panels opinion on the impact of social media on stream of consciousness. One panelist, Tomas Metzinger, felt that it is underestimated and that we have no idea how this technology will affect the brain and change it. We know the brain is adaptive and can be trained, so it was suggested that the aspect of constant interruption much of which is self-directed would have an impact on attention, the term “attentional agency” was used and it was further suggested that if one loses “attentional control” that is learned from infancy, there would be changes. Another panelist, Evan Thompson, pointed out the contribution of William James and free will, i.e. that one has “the ability to direct and sustain attention” and the notion of habits. Please see the site to get the names and biographical information on the panelists who were moderated by Krista Tippettt who has her own organization and has written several books on these issues and is the creator and host of Public Radio’s Being, www.onbeing.org. http://www.nyas.org/Events/Detail.aspx?cid=94c002ca-3da3-4e37-8f75-7b8d67554909 FYI: Books on Qualitative Research I was looking for a book about research using the Internet and I found this entry on ABEbooks.com which is a good site and often has books that I can’t find on amazon.com. This author/editor Pranee Liamputtong has a variety of books on qualitative research, one on sensitive populations, and several on cross-cultural research, several on Asian mothers, ect. Stock Image View Larger Image Health Research in Cyberspace (ISBN: 1594548196 / 1-59454-819-6 ) LIAMPUTTONG, PRANEE Bookseller: Browns Books (Hull, AB, United Kingdom) Bookseller Rating: Quantity Available: 1 Price: US$ 99.18 Convert Currency Shipping: US$ 9.40 From United Kingdom to U.S.A. Destination, Rates & Speeds 30 Day Returns Policy About the Book Bookseller & Payment Information About the Book Bibliographic Details Publisher: GAZELLE DISTRIBUTION Publication Date: 2006-06-10 Binding: Soft cover Book Condition: as new Edition: Description: Retail Price £74.50, you save 18%. Browns Books - selling books online since 1999 softcover. Bookseller Inventory # 1594548196 Editorial Reviews: Synopsis: Chen and colleagues (2004: 157) contend, online technologies provide researchers with an array of alternative arenas for data collection. As we shall see in this volume, there are numerous ways for social researchers to undertake their research. In many ways, online research More... provides researchers with numerous attractive environments that offline research may not be able to do. But we shall see too that online researchers have come to realise that many issues that we have adopted for offline research can be problematic when we attempt to do the same for online research and this includes the methods of data collection and ethics. Online research can also be problematic and there are important issues which researchers need to think through and deal with. I have attempted to cover these issues in the chapters in this volume. Essentially, contributors discuss more or less along the methodological, practical and personal issues in doing their online research. Some chapters may lean towards a more formal type of writing and are more theoretical while others may be more subjective and practical. But this is the intention of this book, as reflected in its title. ...Shrink Social Media News Briefs have been too numerous in the past few weeks to do justice to them in this blog. This makes me realize the benefit of Twitter for almost instant and continuous updates on developments. Certainly, the timeliness of the news stories on WikiLeaks has captivated everyone and the number of articles from different points of view is staggering, at least in the New York Times every day. I will try to sort through my pile and give you the highlights in case you missed them on some aspects. The privacy issues are far greater and more significant in some areas, such as government security and diplomacy as well as relevant to us, health care and confidentiality, HIPPA rules, ect. I was saddened today, Dec. 14, to read that the number of deaths of UN aid workers is higher than ever in Afganistan. Also of note for us is the article on the front page of the NYT Business section yesterday, Dec. 13, titled, “Facebook’s Mean Streets”. Author Miguel Helft talks about Mr. Willner, 26, and his associates in the “hate and harassment team” who are charged with policing the Facebook site for illegal content that violates the terms of service contracts. This is quite a job given the number of entries a day, which he states as more than one billion by the over 500 million member uploaders. The article goes on to say that a page was taken down which was put up to attack sites that did not support Wikeleaks while leaving on WikeLeaks’s pages. Social media’s most successful agent, FaceBook, is in the forefront of Internet freedom of speech debates, which continue among all ages and even into space.

Review of articles in New York Times on Social Media

Social Media Blog: November 27, 2010

The New York Times: Business Day. Wyatt, E. & Vega, T. (11/27/10). Stage set for showdown on online privacy. p. B1, B6.

Two reporters, Wyatt and Vega, give various views on pros and cons of online privacy discussions. Two federal agencies, the Federal Trade commission and the Commerce Department, are preparing reports. In addition, Congressional as well as White House Obama administrators are considering national and international repercussions. Consumer groups are advocating for more privacy in the form of “do not track” which is similar to “do not call” for phones while marketers are eagerly tracking any information for their purposes. This article lays out the points of each group, which have their own agendas and the question of more regulation from the governmental factions who may be at odds or not with each other and not even communicating with the policy that seems to have been in place of letting online companies police themselves. There will surely be more on all of these perspectives immanently. Consumer protection, business interests, security issues, illegal activities, and moral issues are at stake in these issues and all need to be considered.

The New York Times: Business: Small Business. Dahl, D. (11/18.10). A business creator sees big returns from social media. p. B10.

Dahl interviewed Eric Lefkofsky, a 40-year old entrepreneur from Chicago, who has started several Internet businesses, StarBelly, InnerWorkings, Echo Global Logistics, MediaBank, and most recently Groupon. His estimated wealth is $750 million according to Dahl’s research in Forbes and he has invested personal funds of $100 million along with a partner, Keywell, in an investment fund, Lightbank, which focuses on social media capabilities, which technology companies develop in the early stages. Encouraging social experience seems to be the principal ingredient in the example given of Groupon in which a business offers a coupon that the customer tales advantage of and passes it on to their friends thereby creating a social network. Groupon then takes a percentage of the coupon offer. In the interview, Lefkofsky only sees the social aspects growing in the next ten or so years in travel, job opportunities, and as he says any business that wants additional customers. There is access through FaceBook and Twitter to new contacts to promote, to service, and to hear back from customers. Lefkofsky suggests that any business that wants a management tool help with connections and targeting their customers to try one of his new investments, SproutSocial, to learn more about the social advantages of the web and to monitor their brand. It seems to me that one has to become more familiar with the new language as well as the ways to connect to your target group beyond friends.

New York Times: Business. Helft, M. (11/16/10). Facebook offers new messaging system. p. B1, B5.

Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zukerberg, 26, has announced a new service called Facebook Messages which he views as a natural for those who in their teens were used to instant chats and texting as opposed to e-mail users who it infers are of another generation and have used Yahoo, Google, AOL, and MSN for their communication system. Helft reports that this is a “bold move” (p. B1) even for the widest used Web site that would allow their already 500 million American customers to more readily sort personal messages into a “social-in-box” (p. B5) from others on mobile phones or any Web devices. This new system attempts to have one place for messages whether they are chats, emails, or texts. A draw back that is pointed out is the privacy issue and how much private information one wants to share for example with clients, doctors, or service connections. The article ends with the statement by Mr. Zuckerberg that it has taken 15 months and 15 engineers to get to this launch of Messages on Facebook.

New York Times International: Kershner, I. (11-16-10). A blogger’s irreverence infuriates West Bank Muslims.

The 20-year old son of a barber shop owner in the West Bank town of Qalqilya has apparently been bolgging blasphemous comments on Facebook under the Internet name of God Almighty and more. The Palestinian youth is a computer science graduate who has angered his community and raised questions of cultural issues and Internet usage. The Palestinian Authorities are investigating the case.

New York Times: Business Day: Miller, C. C. (11-12-10). Following Twitter, Right to its office. (p.B1, B6).

Start-ups want to be in the building or in close proximity to Twitter headquarters in the SoMa (South of Market) area of San Francisco’s Silicon Valley. Mark Muro, a Brookings Institute researcher on clusters of innovators and business is referenced as a source for the efficacy of being near others in ones field. The physical closeness may foster interaction among creators as well as investors. This reporter states that Twitter now has 300 employees and occupies 62,000 sq. feet of office space, which it will outgrow in several months. The real estate prices are naturally going up and are up to $32 from $29 dollars a square foot.

New York Times: Business. Kopytoff, V. (11-3-10). Facebook’s initial crew is moving on, Ready for another start-up. p. B1, B5.

Although Facebook is only six years old and has not yet gone public, according to Kopytoff, many of the original employees are moving on to start their own Internet companies. It is a good read to see what and to also not the ages in the mid twenties of those mentioned. Also of note is that the shares of stock are very liquid and some have cashed in to move on.

New York Times: Sunday Business. Miller, C. C. (10-31-10). Why Twitter’s C.E.O. demoted himself. p. B1, B4.

One of the co-founders of Twitter, Evan Williams, 38-years old, surprised all by handing the chief executive position to Dick Costelo who was the chief executive officer and noted for his business savy and detail oriented. Mr. Evans wanted to do what he is best at, product strategy, i.e. redesigning the Web site and planning ahead for Twitter’s future, according to Miller who interviewed him. Twitter’s early history is recounted as a “side project” of a podcasting service called Odeo, which Mr. Williams was a co-founder (p. B4). Williams, Dorsey, and Biz Stone came up with Twitter as a one way following and posting that was public but one could not be followed back. By 2008 there were apparent problems among the founders which are alluded to in the article although all are still on board and may have had something to do with it’s rapid growth from 71.3 million registered users to 5 million in 2009. Miller reports that now Twitter has matured form it’s informal beginnings and is now referred to by the founders as “an information network, not a social tool, and see it as an essential way for people to communicate and get information in real time” (p. B4). This lengthy article goes into Mr.Williams personal history in Nebraska as not fitting in and dropping out of college as he was creative, had his own ideas, and didn’t fit in. More information on his personal difficulties with colleagues and lack of business acumen led through the creation of Blogger, which was sold to Google. All of this history leads to the three goals, which Williams stated for Twitter as, “to change the world, to build a business and to have fun” (p. B4).

November 18, 2010:

Social Media: November 18, 2010

Tonight on his TV program, Charlie Rose interviewed one of the founders of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales. He described Wikipedia as a non-profit, humanitarian site. I learned that the word, wiki, is a generic tern and he has no control over that. When asked about Wikileaks, he said that it was separate although it had been related and the paper work disconnecting them is not yet complete, but he has nothing to do with it. He did say he is for access to information, but care should be taken if it is harmful to others. He seems like a very reasonable man who described himself as a dinosaur as he communicated with e-mails as he travels so much. He did say that younger people don’t use it as much and prefer Facebook. He said they like to keep up with and connect with friends and chat. I was prompted to look him up and found that his mother and grandmother were educators and ran a small progressive private school which encouraged self exploration at one’s own pace and he enjoyed reading the encyclopedia. His original attempt at an information service was called Newpedia, which he commented was not fun, too structured, and therefore unsuccessful. Wales did start a PhD in economics which he did not complete as he developed a more social information service for information. To read more see: http://onlinepersonalswatch.typepad.com/news/2006/06/online_personal_2.html

I also interviewed my daughters about their blog: FIRESTONESISTERS.COM http://firestonesisters.com/ as they were in NYC on their way back to LA from Mallorca. They have a travel and healthy life style blog for primarily people from 20 to 40. They will write a piece for me to post in their own words about their focus. As I asked questions they clearly said that you have to be precise, to the point and clear in your reason for starting a blog. What do you want people to know about you or what you are representing. They feel it has been a way for them to define themselves, like branding, so they have their voice strong and out there ..they had over 7,000 hits a few days ago.. before they sign on for a possible TV program. I hadn’t thought about it in that way and now see that you have control of what you post and present and can use this as a vehicle to reach the public. This is more than selling products and with a following one can promote their causes and interests. Other people have to want that information and be interested in following. One daughter felt it might not be appropriate for a therapist to advertise their services on a blog and it seemed to present a public picture and people want privacy in that area, she felt. They hired a design person to help do their website and connect the link to Facebook which has gotten them people that would not have known or had access to necessarily. Their high school and college friends can now find them and know what they are doing. They have girl friends as well as male friends who read their posts. One mentioned that Twitter was not of interest particularly. More on that later....

At the recent, this past weekend, Summit Expressive Therapies Conference in New York, which lasted four full days and took place in four locations, social media was mentioned in the ethics panel discussion. The music therapist on the panel brought up social media as an area of major concern that needed to be clarified and updated constantly in today’s world. Ethical guidelines for research and publication are definitely being investigated and hotly studied particularly in relation to the individual expressive arts therapies.

I just ordered and received from www.BlackstoneAudio.com CDs by Nicholas Carr called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. He presented at talk recently at the New York Academy of Sciences, which was too costly for me to go. This is a good alternative and I will report on what he says. I am reading his new book, Does It Matter: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (2004), Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Company.

November 6th: Prezi and VoiceThread

Social Media Journal: November 6, 2010

I have been working on Voice Thread and Prezi all day, and it is a beautiful Saturday!!

I will include my thoughts on Voice Thread, which will be in my groups final presentation in December in some form, but I thought some might want this info beforehand. These is more in an earlier Blogs as well as I have investigated it many times now to let it sink in and think about how it might be useful in research.

More on VoiceThread http://voicethread.com

VoiceThread is an incredible tool that offers a place for communicating, collaborating, and conversing on line, Web 2.0, that can be especially valuable to educators. By offering audio and video along with text, photos, or document presentations like PowerPoint, the interactive discussion can be much more lively and interesting than straight documents. Products for teachers, K-12 and Higher Education, are available and teachers can upload their materials and open a discussion that has the feel of students being present in the classroom due to audio components and additionally because photographs, avitars, or symbolic representations of participants can be seem around a central screen. It is a way of increasing the social presence and interaction engendering the feeling of being known and part of the group. Students can observe images, documents, stories, poems, or lessons visually, auditorially, or through text and participate with their own media or annotations on the central screen. Universities are using VoiceThread for lectures and on-line courses as location and time zone are not an issue as participants can check in and out at their convenience or on the professor’s schedule. I can’t help but think that this could have been useful in our own program as one of the advantages reported its that it helps create a sense of belonging to a community when students are in different cities and countries and collaboration is wanted but often a challenge. Learning can be fostered by this proactive means of responding that gives everyone a chance to speak and be heard and receive comments from the professor as well as others in the group. To engender connection group pictures or personally chosen symbols appear when one make a comment and both are embedded around the central space of the image or text. Participants can make their comments and be heard in their own voices. Choices for responding are several: through their spoken voice on a mic or through the telephone, by texting, by adding their own videos, or adding an audio file. This tool allows comments to be gathered in one space and shared by all selected to participate. This can be a secured site or in other instances and at the creator’s discretion the discussion can be opened to the public.

Other products are available for businesses and professionals for a fee, which allow much more space for creating imaginative presentations and discussions. The term “asynchronous” was used on the site as meaning that participants can work on the site at any time. Free versions require registration and signing in and then you can experiment in a limited way with browsing others products and creating simple ones of your own using your voice. The usefulness of this for our purposes in tour Lesley program would be in an additional way of making a discussion more alive as multimedia could be employed. Actually hearing each other’s voices could add a great deal to feeling tone and interest of members participating. Elluminate has many problems particularly with following with many distractions and having back and for conversations between participants. Also, there is not enough time ever to have all voices included in the discussion. This could be a way of responding that was much more real and could be in addition to written responses on threads. Both are useful.

As far as my own research, which uses interviews, which are considered confidential, this tool is not appropriate. Possibly if I were doing a blog that was open to women artists who had recovered from major illness and wanted to talk about their experiences and perhaps share images with others, Voice Thread would be a good way to do this as people could choose to participate and even do so under another name. Another possibility would be to start a discussion on various art works and have a collaborative discussion. There is a large group of disabled artists who can not get out to galleries and museums and this could be a way of including them in an on line community.

Further information suggested that similar tools would be: Animoto, Jing, Voki, or Wikispaces.

It was also noted by Google that VoiceThread was one of the top 100 tools and would soon be ADA compliant. I believe they had done this now and have done work for the hearing impaired in Washington, DC.

Prezi.com

The idea of Prezi is a good one. To enliven PowerPoint presentations would be a real plus as they are very boring and text exhausting to sit through. I had hoped for more in my attempts to manipulate the canvas, but found it very unresponsive and difficult, in not impossible to get what I wanted in colors, fonts, and timing. Perhaps it is just slow or tools are not able to perform adequately. I am used to a Mac, which is what all the designers and creatives in NYC and probably elsewhere use, and I would bet that this program was not designed either for or by Mac people. There is much more available that is more user friendly on Apple. I could be wrong, but as an artist, this does not do enough for me and I couldn’t get it to follow the paths and do a slideshow or animate except with me doing something each time. So, here is a simple one that I don’t find all that interesting, so will explore further for final assignments. Any comments would be welcome. All of the images are ones that I have personally taken, except this one of Deep Space, see info below.

http://prezi.com/ehzwmp3evn5j/edit/#28_4012770

This is an image in the Prezi that I took of a photo exhibited at The Rubin Museum of Art here in New York. See info..

Oct. 27, Apple Tools

Social Media: Updates October 27, 2010

I spent hours in the Apple Store today at two workshops, looking at the new MacBook Air, and upgrading my MacBook to Snow Leopard so I can upgrade iWorks and iLife. A big part of this age of computers is staying current and constantly upgrading software and the machines themselves. There is pleasure with Macs as the large screens are so inviting and high definition and designs on products as well as the environment there is an experience that is energizing. I asked several Mac assistants about security issues as that have been in the news a great deal, and one said yes there are issues and safeguards but today people are just going ahead with all sorts of info and not worrying. So, personal and business are separate issues and viewed differently by most savvy people. The ability to do so many interactive things with various media is indeed more captivating and encourages experimentation.

I went to tow workshops and learned something about Pages, which is Mac’s word processing and layout program. It is so much more fun than Microsoft Word!! The second workshop was on Keynote, which is Mac’s PowerPoint presentation program. Perhaps with new developments in adding media to text presentation, presentations, which we have all been to that are so boring and uninteresting, can be much more alive and engaging. One can add music, images, and movies by clicking and dragging and dropping into templates. These programs can do things and have features that Word does not, so, a possible problem might be in exporting. It is possible to share as a PDF, or a Word document, and more, but not all features can transfer. Mostly it seems fine if one adjusts settings and knows what projectors will be available for a presentation. I am going to try and learn these as it does seem as if things have gotten much more user friendly. The recipient has to have QuickTime. These is a general limit to file size which is 5mgs. The file can be saved to iWorks which is web based and can be password protected, but available to others who have that.

Pages is part of iWork which contains Keynote and iLife as well and these make up Mac’s productivity programs. The two parts of Pages contain the work processing, its Word, and Page layouts, which allows all sorts of uses such as newsletters, flyers, business cards and more. Inserting photos in text used to be so hard and now it looks easy, I will experiment and see. The charts and pie graphs are amazing in going from 2D to 3D and for example, exploding a pie chart for emphasis. Another example, which appeals to me as a sculptor is that you can have cylindrical bar graphs in metallic colors that can be rotated! It could be that I am just getting familiar with these, but I did my Pilot Study having to invent some things that were clunky and hard and these seem more visually exciting and offer many more choices in how things look and convey information. The good news is that Apple apparently has video tutorials on iWork at apple.com.

How I might use these and other programs that we have been investigating takes time and is often a distraction from doing the necessary research and thinking of the content that needs focused attention. Putting them together down the road promises to be much more visually oriented and captivating if this learning can be applied effectively. Making it fit together seamlessly is indeed a challenge and pushes one to think and make things differently and in innovative ways. The raw source material and one’s own creativity, motivation, and message are still at the heart of it.

Oct. 23: News Stories: Social Media

Social Media News Stories: The New York Times October 23, 2010

Helft, M. (2010). Marketers Can Glean Private Data on Facebook. pp.B1, B2.

According to Helft who reported that two “academic studies”, one from India and one from Germany, demonstrated the possibility that even though Facebook is a secure site that does not allow sharing of personal information, advertisers may still able to find information. Advertisers seek such information so as to selectively target their adds to likely customers. It appears that if a user clicks on an advertisers link they are identified as a likely candidate for further adds in this area. Such information on personal characteristics as sexual orientation, age, religion, political views, or relationship status were mentioned as possible data that could indirectly be obtained or “uncovered” through various manoeuvers. This journalist referred to another article this week in the Wall Street Journal that brought up similar concerns about Facebook. Facebook has acknowledged that they have looked into their vulnerabilities and have had problems where information about their users and their users friends has been inadvertently shared with advertisers. It was mentioned that MySpace had similar problems with such information being obtained by advertisers wanting to target customers although that “violated” their policies as well.

It seems to me that although sites attempt to be secure, there is a large question as to whether it is possible for them to do so and even think of the many ways creative advertisers, kids, or hackers can be anticipated or stopped in cyberspace.

October, 18:

Eligon, J. & White, R. (2010). A Juror’s Blog Chronicle Stirs an Age-Old Question. p. A12.

Journalists Eligon and White reported on a juror, Bruce Slutsky, who used a blog to talk about his experience of being called and serving as a a juror in a civil case before the State Supreme Court in Queens court. A lawyer in Texas happened to see his blog and became concerned that he had violated protocol by blogging and revealing too much in his dialogue of laying out his frustrations with the slowness of the process and a details about what was happening in the court room. Although the judge presiding did not find this to be the case when it was brought to his attention, the questioning and uninvolved lawyer from afar did bring up the fact that jurors are not allowed to do research on the Internet on Google, Facebook, or Twitter about the case. This brings up an issue that could potentially need to be defined more extensively now that people are using the Internet to talk about their daily experiences openly and publically. This juror felt that he had done nothing wrong, which brings up the question of who decides out there in cyberspace and do we need more or less watchdogs and regulations and is this even possible?

Another article on the front page of the Business Section, Determined to Crack the Social Code (pp. B1, B8) by Claire Cain Miller addresses the issue Google faces in trying to compete with social sites, particularly Facebook, which supposedly prevent search engines used by advertisers from gaining access to personal data. Googles’s Buzz is their entrée into the social networking world hasn’t done for them what they hoped and they are researching something more effective. One problem brought out here was that emails where automatically available when on Buzz, this was changed. According to this report, Google’s Linkedin and Twitter allows “ information their friends have published online can appear in search results” (p. B8). They mentioned that only a few Google account holders have set up these accounts. This gives me pause as Linkedin is billed as a professional site and it was my understanding that you had to allow people to be part of it. U-Tube is also a Google site and one of the ways Google had developed to obtain information. This article points out that many people are now asking their friends for information that they might have gone to Google to find before the popularity of social sites, particularly Facebook, have gained so much use by preference. It appears that there is fierce competition our there and isn’t there enough room in cyberspace for companies to specialize in different areas of client’s interests, or does one site have to do all things for all people??