At my parents’ 25^th wedding anniversary party last weekend, I was making the obligatory rounds and bumped into a particularly close family friend.  At one point, our conversation turned to work, at which point I told her about Eastwick’s move and how I couldn’t wait to leave the warehouse with no ceilings (just insulation and a few skylights) and move into a beautiful building filled with windows and natural light.  She looked at me, and with a completely straight face informed me that the “warehouse” style is actually finding its way back into interior design plans within the corporate world.  That’s all fine and dandy, but I’ll take my windows, thanks.

… And now I have to get nostalgic for a minute.  Our Redwood City office is where I started my career, learned the basics, and even began blogging.  No matter where we go, I’ll always remember this office as the place where my post graduate life began.

I also have to say that I’ll really miss spending time with our fellow tenants (and client), Coghead.  I don’t want to sound like a yearbook entry here, but please be sure to keep in touch, guys!

These facts aside, I am so excited about moving into the new building.  Besides the aforementioned natural light benefit, as well as the superficial benefits like the shorter commute and being a stone’s throw from In-N-Out Burger, this is a big step for Eastwick.  “THINK BIG” was our mantra at our most recent kickoff meeting, and I think this move is proof that we’re heading in the right direction. 

Coghead, Eastwick, In N Out Burger, Online Communities, Redwood City, Uncategorized, warehouse style

When 007: Casino Royale was first released in theaters, movie goers sat, excitedly waiting to see what kind of gadgets James Bond would use in this particular adventure.  Would there be another wristwatch that could alternately be used as a laser beam cutter?  What about eye glasses that had X-ray vision?  In this particular film, one of the highlights was a microchip that was implanted in Bond to help MI6 keep track of his whereabouts and vital signs.  The movie was released in 2006, but with the advent/popularity of social networks, this technology already sounds a bit out of date.  These days, anyone can become an international spy by simply signing on.

One such example is Bliin, a social network in public beta that is rigged with satellite positioning technology.  This means that if your cell phone has GPS capabilities, you can log onto Bliin and upload an application onto your headset.  After doing this, your location can be monitored by other users with similar phones or through the site, where the positions are superimposed onto Google Maps.  Sounds really cool, right?  I’d have to agree, if I was an international spy…

But, for all intents and purposes, let’s say I’m not.  Bliin’s tagline talks about sharing personal experiences.  But really, does anyone else think that this borders on over sharing?

Granted, I see how an executive might want his colleagues to know his whereabouts so that he can be reached 24-7.  However, there are such things as a cell phone and an Outlook calendar.  Not to mention a life outside of work.

I can also understand how it might be fun for friends to share experiences as they’re happening.  In this fast-paced day and age, instant gratification seems to be the all the rage.  But, what about the abusers out there?  Yes, there are privacy settings, but people aren’t always very good at actually using them.  It seems as though it would be fairly easy for a “bad guy” to solidify his “evil plan” after obtaining this kind of information.  In my mind, this has the potential to drive online predators to a much scarier place: real life.

Maybe there is a use for this technology of which I am not aware.  While I think that this idea was probably a noble one and does indeed have the potential to be really interesting, users really need to remember to be cautious.

007, Bliin, Casino Royale, Google Maps, GPS capabilities, James Bond, MI6, Online Communities, Outlook, social networks

… And it’s about time!  Teens and college students have been using social networks, wikis and blogs for a long time, and now corporations are finally hopping on the wagon.

“It is the high-school- and college-age children of executives who are spreading the word,” said Andrew MacAfee, a Harvard Business School associate professor credited with coining the phrase Enterprise 2.0. “What people are cluing into now is that software is an interactive social tool and should be exploited to that effect.”

Well, as long as it’s happening, I suppose it doesn’t matter whether they’re getting their information from a highly paid research team or from their families.  But I digress.

Over the weekend, a colleague of mine sent me an interesting article about IBM’s newly launched initiative, created with the ultimate goal of increasing corporate use of collaborative technologies.  This toolset will consist of Quickr 8 (a team collaboration tool), Lotus Connections (social network) and Info 2.0 products (Web mashup), and will help aggregate information so that employees can more easily brainstorm, communicate and share expertise internally, or with clients, partners, etc. 

So far, the idea of corporations going online has stirred up some mixed feelings.  Many companies thank collaboration technologies for helping them communicate efficiently enough to expand globally, while others wonder if the benefits are over-exaggerated, and whether something that started off as social tool can really help businesses. 

Personally, I think I fall somewhere between the hopeless optimists and the cranky skeptics.  There is no doubt in my mind that collaboration technologies will be a big bread winner for corporations in the end, especially with new applications and aggregators springing up each day.  I know many businesses (including my own employer, Eastwick Communications) have already started to take advantage of this technology, but I will be curious to see how long it will take before this type of communication really becomes essential enough that it goes commonplace.  Until that day, I’ll be on the edge of my seat, ready and raring to post the news.

Andrew MacAfee, blogs, collaborative technologies, communication, Eastwick Communications, Enterprise 2.0, Harvard Business School, IBM, Info 2.0, Lotus Connections, Online Communities, Quickr 8, social networks, wikis

More than just a song by Duran Duran, it’s a pertinent question that many young adults are now asking themselves as they sign up for social networks.  In an earlier post, I mentioned that a fellow University of Arizona alumni was told that he’d be hired only if he was willing to delete many of his pictures on Facebook.  Another friend of mine was denied his dream job because his prospective employer didn’t like what his friends had to say on his MySpace comment wall.  However, when I was applying for jobs after college, I went to a Third Thursday event where I met a podcaster (and potential employer) who explicitly asked for my MySpace URL so he could get a better sense of my Internet skills as demonstrated through a Web site, as well as extra skills not revealed by a corporate application form.  So, social networks can both hinder and help your chances of getting a job.  Problem is, there is no way to tell what they’re looking at, and which way they’ll swing once they’ve seen your personal information.

According to research by Viadeo, a business social networking site, one in five employers finds information about candidates on the Internet, and 59 percent of those say it influences recruitment decisions.  This does not surprise me.  However, about 25 percent of human resources decision makers said they had rejected candidates based on personal information found online, while only 13 percent decided to recruit people in light of what they found.  Those numbers don’t bode very well for a young adult who has accounts with several social networks.

In an article by New York magazine, Kitty Ostapowicz, a 26 year old bartender, states that she has posted nude pictures of herself on the Internet.  There is also a story that’s been covered in many publications throughout the world (including Community Stew) about the college senior who was denied teaching credentials by Millersville University officials after they found a picture on her MySpace account labeled “drunken pirate.”  What about all of the angry rants that we’ve all read on Xanga?  Personally, I’m a firm believer in both social networks and tight privacy settings, but personal habits aside, it’s going to be very interesting to see if, fifty years from now, the content on our personal profiles will still have this same kind of effect on job recruiters.  Will the ghost we call Web archives haunt our generation for the rest of our lives?

Actually, my guess is a resounding no.  Here’s why: today’s young adults are the first generation to grow up on the Internet.  While more seasoned professionals might be shocked as to why we’d put so much personal information on display, this is how we grew up.  Living our lives in public is a natural, beautiful thing to us, because it not only encourages, but demands, some level of openness and authenticity that we don’t necessarily believe has existed in the past.  And while we might be losing out on some jobs now, we won’t be for long.  One day, young adults will have the recruiting jobs that others now have, and they will be less likely to judge a job candidate based on the personal information found on the Internet because they will realize that a picture of a beer bong isn’t necessarily a sign of a bad character.

But, until then, perhaps paying a bit more attention to those privacy settings would be a good idea for everyone.

Community Stew, drunken pirate, Duran Duran, Facebook, Kitty Ostapowicz, Millersville University, MySpace, New York Magazine, Online Communities, social networks, Third Thursday, University of Arizona, Viadeo, Web archives, Xanga

I’ve been told on numerous occasions that trends have cycles.  Take bell bottoms and tube tops, for instance.  All the rage in the late sixties, then again in the nineties.  Now, the same thing is happening with music (and no, I’m not talking about a Monkees comeback).  While the days of hanging out at music stores or going to a friend’s house to listen to records went out of fashion with the increasing popularity of personal music players, Facebook profile application Mosoto Remix is out to make music a social experience once again.

“With the addition of music to a social network, such as Facebook, music is coming back to it’s social roots, and Mosoto is trying to make that experience as real as possible with real-time interactions,” said Paul Chung, the Director of Marketing for Mosoto Remix.

From this application, a user has the ability to create playlists, send songs to friends, and explore songs from both friends and networks.  There is also a mini feed that keeps friends updated on when you make new playlists, as well as what new songs you’re listening to most often.  The cake topper is the network chatroom, which allows users to connect and talk about what music is new and cool.

I used this application at work today, and it’s a Godsend.  I don’t have ipod speakers here, but with Mosoto Remix, it doesn’t matter, because I have my music, as well as my friends’, at my fingertips.  While similar applications, such as the ever-popular iLike, might be simpler, Mosoto Remix allows users to listen to full-length tracks, and all in all gives users a much deeper music sharing experience.  

While records might skip or get scratches, this new application is not also without flaws.  When I inquired about liability and piracy, co-founder Girard Kelly said that since user’s content is stored on a Box.net account, they must adhere to their terms of service, which, “allows for the removal of copyrighted content.”  While we have yet to see how that will all work out in the end, overall, I think that Mosoto Remix has positioned itself to be a big influencer in new media’s music sharing world.

Box.net, Facebook, Girard Kelly, iLike, ipod speakers, liability, mini feed, Monkees, Mosoto Remix, music, network chatroom, Online Communities, Paul Chung, personal music players, piracy, playlists, social experience, social networks

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop.

From becoming a member of the Causes application on Facebook to watching celebrities try and earn money for their favorite charities on Kevin Bacon’s “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” social networks are riding the coattails of a very important online trend: there is an exponential amount of growth going on within social networks.

Take Kevin Bacon’s network, based on six degrees of separation, which is a theory that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else in the world by a chain of no more than six acquaintances. In the era of the Internet, this statement has become more of a reality than ever. An animal lover who is passionate about putting an end to euthanizing animals simply because of overcrowding in shelters can raise just as much money for his or her cause as Jon Bon Jovi, who is raising money to end poverty through an organization called Philadelphia Soul. Both are admirable causes, and both deserve hefty contributions.

As always, Aesop’s moral words are worth taking to heart, but now, in this day and age, it’s exciting to know that a small kindness can be a big one, too.

Aesop, Facebook, Jon Bon Jovi, Kevin Bacon, Online Communities, Philadelphia Soul, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, six degrees of separation, social networks

Long gone are the days where employees would gather at the water cooler to exchange office gossip.  Now, corporate employees are taking their socializing elsewhere (keeping my blog topic in mind, I’m sure you can take a wild guess here): social networks.

In a recent study conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), results revealed that almost two-thirds of business professionals in the United States use personal and professional social networking Web sites during the workday.  Of these respondents, about half said that they use social networks to connect internal staff to remote workers, as well as to showcase their strongest work. 

Specifically, LinkedIn is the most popular networking hub for professionals, followed by Yahoo’s 360 and MySpace.  It doesn’t stop there, though.  I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again – there is, quite literally, a social network for everyone.  MyRagan.com has recently surfaced as a meeting place for professional communicators to network, and to get help or ideas regarding best practices, etc.  Doctors have Sermo.  Librarians have Library 2.0.  Engineers have CR4.  The list goes on, as do the reasons for giving in to this trend.

Says Jay Jamrog, i4cp’s SVP of Research, “Social networks have opened a new dynamic in bringing that community online, and the ability to share what’s working and what isn’t in real time is invaluable to many employees today.”

As a PR professional, I can definitely appreciate anything that will get me the information I need sooner rather than later.  However, I think people need to put this into perspective.  Does picking up a phone and making a call really take that much longer?  While I think that social networks can be a great tool to use when you’re crunched for time, I still enjoy the occasional chat that accompanies someone’s visit to my cube.

CR4, i4cp, Institute for Corporate Productivity, Jay Jamong, Library 2.0, LinkedIn, MyRagan.com, MySpace, Online Communities, Sermo, social networks, Yahoos 360