In the book naked conversation is stated "the number of bogglers almost triple from under 7.5 million users to almost 20 million. Someone started a blog onced every second today, and about every two seconds someone else abandoned one" (Scoble and Israle). Despite this fact Molly Woods article "Five Reasons social networking doesn't work" believe otherwise. The question both raised was the future of social networking, whether it will continue to evolved or become yet another event in the past; similar to the dot com event.

I on the other hand it will evolve but limited. I do agree that it will benefit companies that encourage its employee to blog, however with the heighten security measure that our society has and will continue to evolve into there will be a fine line between what is considered ok material and what is not. The also depends on how the access to the internet will expand. In the developed nation internet access is taken for granted. However, emerging countries it is still new and many times have limited websites that are in the local language.

I believe social networking would evolve into media form where video would be more popular due to its personal connection that can be made. It's more personal to view authors (to a blog) that speak than it is to read what they wrote, which is why bookstores that feature best selling authors. Their present draws readers further more into their books and also heighten their popular status. It would even better if the sense of smell is able to be convey in the future, then maybe there would be food smell to entice visitors :) So that there would be more things to do contradicting one of Wood's factor

Finding a job

After reading Hansen's article it gave me a perspective of a recruiter. It had confirmed my suspiction that online recuitring has not gain the momentum that many people expect it to be. Being a Kogod student obtaining a job has always been a great emphasis in the school of business. I have attended many job search workshops. One of the fact that suprises me is that 75% of the jobs are not listed. The article mentioned linkin which I only found out through class last week. I didn't expect to find my collegues from my work on the network. Being that I have never searched for a full time position (I plan on going to graduate school) I really don't know what the networking scene for recruters is like. I have found may part time and summer jobs though. My most sucessful tool is through the temp agency.

Hopefully one day finding a job online wouldn't be too difficult. It takes about an average of 6 months to find a position. I even tried to one find work at P&G and they require a 40 mintues evaluation. It seems like the new trend is to screen people out with behavoral questions prior to even looking at the resume. This I find to be a very bad idea because the all the answer to the questions are multiple choice. Therefore, after 20 mintues or so it gets a little boring. A company can lose some very key talent if they do this. I know they lost me, because applying took forever. Hence my advice is to find someone who works there first and see if there is a better way to apply. Through social networking if possible.

Value of customer

In the USA customer care usually is one of the top priority in a business. Some companies go to great lenghth to maintain a relationship with a customer. For example, the summer I was preparing to study abroad in France, I had planned on cancleling my cell phone plan. However, T-mobile managed to let me negotiate my needs. Because I have no use for US cell phone service in France I felt like I don't need it. After a lengthy call T-mobile offered to postpone my plan and in return I signed a 2 year contract. I have heard that it takes less resources to keep a customer than it would to obtain new ones. As a business student I would agree.

The opposite holds true in France. The customer is seen last and customer care does not exist. Especially true in in public settings, where you are at the mercy of a civil servant. In the book naked conversation by Scoble and Israel listed conducts on blogging etiquette for companies. Reading this I thought about the world of difference between customer care here in the US and France. The concept of blogging for customer care I think will never exist in France.

International Teamwork

A while back I was part of an experiement regarding time delay and team. The purpose of the experiment was to analyze how what time difference cause on work quality and efficency. It was stimulated to paralle a company that have offices around the world. For example: one trial would be two office with a 6 hours day. In addition, all the communication between workers is through chats. As one of the workers, I found out how frustrating it can be when I begin my own work and my collegue would be getting ready to "leave" the office.

There was a disconnect between each office. There are many reason for this. One of which is "the difference (location) caused problems in aligning the groups based ont eh alliance agreement."--Robert Cross, 2004. Cross wrote about how the difference cause a lack of awareness of each indivual's experties within the company. Creating a personal relationship with virtual teams is difficult. Not knowing the atmosphere of difference or even the personality of each indicudual can lead to barriers in regards to teamwork. Most of the time we have small talk to people we see. It would be odd to email someone to try to mimic that. Most of the time we email with a purpose or to get information. The question I present this week is how can a virtual team get to know each other through the net and still be strictly professional?