The Social Media Revolution

Last summer, while working at SAS Institute in Cary, NC, I had the pleasure of attending at seminar on social media. I did not know much about the subject, aside from my personal use and general unfocused clicking on Facebook and LinkedIn; I certainly did not know that there were so many social networks out there or that they were all so different and so extensive. The point of the seminar however was not only to simply discuss social media; it was, in fact, to discuss the impact social media makes on not only individuals as consultants/experts in their fields and as average consumers but also on large corporations and companies, like, for example, SAS. Wayne Sutton of http://socialwayne.com/, the seminar's guest speaker, opened my eyes about the capabilities of social media. The man made a successful business out of the modern-day development and popularity of social media, and he is also the expert on the subject. A YouTube video (insert ironic joke here) on the social media revolution linked here summarizes some of the things he talked about in this presentation.
Per our class discussion the other day, do you still think that social media is ruining our lives and corrupting our minds? I do not think so. I, like Wayne Sutton and many other modern-day business professionals, see it as an OPPORTUNITY! Surely, the way we receive information is changing (and yes, that may be scary and unfamiliar), but some many aspects of our lives - advertising, consulting, information flow, consumer behavior, business strategies, organization of the economy - have just reached a new level - due to the development of social media. It took just one seminar to convince me, and like many others, I have now stopped fearing the internet and agonizing over all the facts that are too personal for me to reveal to the public, and I have now started embracing my digital dossier and actively controlling all of that information that is out there about me. I refuse to see social media a hindrance of progress, and I choose to use it as a tool to my advantage in my career in the future. What do you think? Do you agree with this perspective? Yes? Well, then, join the Facebook group.

The Purpose

Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 1861.

I had an interesting conversation with my mom the other day. She was wondering why the internet wasn't invented earlier. Why wasn't it invented in the mid-1960s when she was born? Or in the 1980s when she went to college? She grew up in the Soviet Union during a time period when the infinite patriotism of previous generation (that is, my grandparents' generation) no longer made sense to this entirely new, young society hooked on foreign films, imported products, and Def Leppard. Her argument stated that the sheer existence of the internet* would have broken down all the remaining aspects of the idealist thought that supported communism, and the Soviet Union, or whatever was left of it at that point, would no longer be standing (or even kneeling) by the 1980s. Due to a lack of knowledge on the subject, I can neither support nor argue against her theories. However, I would like to use her question as an example of very good analysis of the 21st-century interactions between society and technology. Essentially, these are the types of questions we should be asking. The discussions associated with these questions will help us gain new insights on our modern way of life; they will also help us understand how we got here and where we are going. This blog is dedicated to these discussions in hopes to provide some clarity on whether or not we, as a world "empire," have truly progressed "westward" in accordance with our timely course.
*The idea of internet for my mom is not only very reliable, easy means of communication but it is also a vast source of all kinds of information, including opinions, and all kinds of knowledge. She considers the internet to be a means to be bring the world closer together and one of the fundamental reasons for globalization. Because she has this particular view of the internet and its capabilities, she cites it in this question.