Post-Covid World

In the Covid / Post-Covid world, there are many changes. Some of these changes are temporary (hopefully). Others may become permanent. In the workforce / business world some of these changes may be for the better; at least in the long run. I say in the long run because in the short term there are growing pains. Some of these changes may be good for businesses but not for workers. Others will be good for workers and not for businesses. Yet some will benefit both workers and businesses. Only time will tell.

The idea / concept of remote work / telework / work from home is not new. The scale of workers working remotely is new. As of 2022 the amount of workers that work from home has contracted from the peak in 2020. Information Technology plays a large part in how effective telework is. Almost every industry can utilize remote work, but many need to be creative. A plumber can’t work from home, but their support staff can work remotely. All a receptionist needs is a computer and a phone to get service requests from customers and potential customers.

This notional plumber could just say: “use your own computer and we will forward calls to your cell”. This may work as a temporary fix until a functional system can be put in place. The upfront expenses to get a remote worker setup don’t need to be very high. Each company needs to balance what their employees need to complete their work against the cost to get them the tools they need. Proper planning is key.

Let's take two office based businesses in the same field and see how their choices in tools made a difference. Let's start in the spring of 2019. Both companies decide to upgrade their computers and network. Company A decides to get all their employees new Windows 10 desktop computers. They decided that laptops are too expensive, harder to maintain, and need docking systems to work well in an office environment. They decide to replace their aging standalone server with a similar but newer model. They decided that the server will have limited access to the internet; mainly for system updates. They feel that adding VPN access to the server and routing ports to the server leaves it open to security threats. And they decide to just add a few more extensions to the company's hardwired PBX phone system.

Now Company B took a different approach. They noticed that they tended to have several call-outs any time the weather acted up. So, they decided to give their workforce more flexibility and mobility. In the spring of 2019, they also upgraded their systems. They decided to replace the existing desktop computers with laptops and docking stations. To defer costs they decided to do this in stages over the next 18-24 months. The oldest computers were switched out first. They also decided that their server should have VPN access and the ability to remote print. They decided their existing server just needed a memory upgrade and one of the hard drives needed to be replaced, but their server could not easily be upgraded to allow for VPN access. It was decided that a dedicated VPN server would be added to the network. A dedicated device also allowed for greater security. In December of 2019, a large ice storm came through. Even Though they could work remotely, they had a hard time forwarding calls. Right after the new year of 2020, they decided to switch to a VOIP phone system. They carefully chose a system that was not too pricey and had the features they needed. Initially, the expense was mainly the cost of all new VOIP phones. Luckily they were able to find some price-sensitive phones for under $60 each for most employees. The receptionist and some of the owners need more expensive phones. On average the new phones were cheaper than their old PBX phones. And they did not need to maintain their PBX hardware. Because of their careful consideration, their new monthly bill was slightly less than their old phone bill. By late February 2020 they had all the phones replaced, the server was upgraded, the VPN was set up, and 60% of the desktop computers had been replaced with laptops. Then came March.

They say March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb. March of 2020 came in like a wrecking ball, and as of 2022 still has not left. In the flurry of march madness, both these companies faced obstacles they never imagined. As the world stood on its head, companies around the world had to figure out a way, or close shop. No company was positioned to ride out the storm right out of the gate. Some companies did find a way to thrive while others faltered. Many of the technology companies found they had more customers almost overnight. App delivery companies found that more and more people choose to have their food (and other essentials) delivered and not leave the house. And these app companies found drivers as the gig economy received an influx of new workers as other parts of the economy collapsed. Restaurants that could no longer serve customers on-premises offered takeout and eventually delivery either with their own staff or with one of these apps. These delivery apps did not offer much help to company A and company B.

Productivity was a main concern with both company A and company B. Company A had a hard time moving forward. They decided to have their employees use their own computers to remote desktop into their work computers. This lead to various problems. The biggest one is security. The company and its IT team had little control over the employees’ personal computers. They also did not have time to make sure all the personal computers had all the security credentials they needed. And each computer was different. That was the second problem. There was no standard. Some employees had personal computers that were similar to the companies. But most had older computers or none at all. It is difficult to do work from a tablet. Some employees chose to purchase computers with their own money. While other employees refused (or were unable to) pay out of pocket for something the company needed. With the decline in business, the company chose to furlough these employees. Not every employee needed to have access to their office phone. But those that did had a major problem. There was almost no way to transfer an individual extension to a cell phone with their existing phone system. They ended up purchasing prepaid cell phones for the receptionists to receive calls and forward them to the other employees’ personal cell phones. This was a disaster; they started losing the few customers they had left.

Company B lost business too, but their productivity was higher. They were able to get most of their employee’s setup from home with some headaches. They scrambled to get laptops to replace the remaining desktops. Unfortunately, supply was down and demand went up because pretty much the whole world was in the same boat. There was not so much price gouging as there was a lack of deals for computer equipment. They did not need the full 40% of the remaining computers right away. Due to related issues with the pandemic some employees took a leave from the company. With the help of government assistance they did not need to lay off or furlough employees. Their new VOIP phone system allowed employees to take calls through an app or website on their computer using a headset or they could forward calls to their cells. They next looked for productivity and workflow tools. Over the next few months, they went through several. With the exception of the loud family member in the background, most of their clients did not even notice a difference. Internally they were issues, but nothing catastrophic. They did need to hire some part-time workers to help with the transition. Mainly digitizing paper documents that were needed. The building management set up strict rules for entering the building. So they decided to have 5 key people go in when needed. It was almost always 1 person in the office at a time. And if the office was visited 3 times a week, that was standard. Sometimes they did not need to go into the office. They just went to the bay door by the mailroom. Called and picked up the mail contactless.  And once a week someone would pick up documents from the office and deliver them contactless to one of the new part-time employees who would scan them and upload them to the document management system.

Company A had the same building management company in a different building with the same restrictions. Unfortunately, they had an added issue. Since their employees used remote desktop, if the computer (in the office) locked up, someone would need to go in person to reboot it. This happened about twice a week. The company was too busy dealing with other IT issues that they did not realize (or could not bother with) they did not have a document management system. Each employee kept their files on their own network drive. They did have a great deal of paper documents. Initially what they would do is each day an employee would go into the office, retrieve any documents that were needed, reboot any computers, and deliver the documents to the employee. They would also pick up any documents that the employee was done with to be returned to the office the next day. This was made worse by the fact that several employees lived over an hour away. Sometimes they would meet at a rest stop halfway. This was not productive.

Once restrictions were lifted company A immediately started having employees come back to the office. With required distancing still in place, this meant they needed to redesign the office to meet health regulations and guidelines.  Company B had to redesign their workspace too but they decided to only have a reduced staff report back to work. Even though it was not perfect, Company B had a decent work from home workflow. Some employees preferred to be back in the office so for the most part, they were the ones that came back.

Companies around the world need to decide how they are going to handle their workforce. Some companies have discovered that they can have workers operate remotely with a decent amount of productivity. A key part is the tools they decide to invest in. being able to know if an employee is being paid to surf the internet may be of concern. But office employees have found ways to mask their lack of productivity for decades. Additionally, having too many restrictions and policies may restrict the way the employees work. Many companies did not have a reliable way to gauge employee productivity prior to the pandemic, while others had convoluted metrics that employees learn to manipulate. 

Online Communities

Online Communities

Online communities have existed for decades. They have evolved over time and are still evolving. Some of these online communities exist for social interaction, others for business. Colleges have online e-learning communities. And more than ever before K-12 have online e-learning communities. Additionally, there are online business communities. Also, there are communities for the military and veterans & their families. What is considered an online community may vary based on interpretation. Some online communities may be on one specific platform. Others may occupy multiple platforms. Yet others can transcend from online to the physical world and vice versa. The key to online communities is that there is an interaction (beyond the trivial) and that it utilizes a computer network.

While online communities are social due to their interactivity, some are personal while others are more professional.  The Professional platform LinkedIn is a service that has online communities, each with its own goals. The platform as a whole could be considered an online community, with online communities with it. Facebook on the other hand is designed to be a personal online community, with other personal and professional online communities within it.

The beginning of online communities began shortly after the development of computers. A predecessor to the modern internet was ARPANET developed in 1971. Email and listservers were developed shortly after (Abras, n.d.). These early interactions were the beginning of online communities. In the late 1970s, Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) were developed (BBS History, n.d.). While ARPANET was a somewhat exclusive system, BSSs were available to anyone with a computer, a modem, and a phone line. Phone lines were fairly common by the late 1970s, but computers and modems were not. So, the online communities were fairly personal.  In the 1980s with personal computers becoming more popular, so did BBSs. in the late 1980s ARPANET migrated to NSFNET (“NSF and the birth of the internet - special report,” 2009). This was the beginning of the internet. By the early 1990s, the internet as we know it today took shape. Online services like America Online (AOL), CompuServe, and Prodigy began offering internet services to their subscribers. One of these subscribers was author John Green. In his book “The Anthropocene Reviewed” he wrote about being a moderator for an online community on CompuServe (Green, 2021).

At the turn of the millennium, the internet became mainstream. With services like AOL offering full internet access and new cable modems (Fellows & Jones, 2001) offering access to the internet 24/7, there were few barriers for people in the United States to get on the internet. It was not just the US but many countries were connected to the internet. Many early popular websites were search engines or e-commerce sites. But soon services like LiveJournal (How did LiveJournal get started? Who runs it now?, n.d.) and MySpace (Cashmore, 2006) emerged and the beginning of social media had begun. Then came micro-blogging services like Twitter (Carlson, 2011).

There is no one format for online communities. While certain platforms may foster a certain type of online community, no one platform is truly dominant. Some may have more users or more communities, but overall today there is a fairly broad group of platforms. An online community could develop from a group on Facebook. These groups revolve around a certain interest. The scope and topic of the group is up to the group's creator. Some of these creators keep a strict standard of what could be discussed and who could join. They could use administrators and moderators to assist them. Other groups have a laissez-faire attitude. But a Facebook group does not necessarily make an online community. Some online communities span several different platforms and may have their own website(s). One such online community calls itself Nerdfighteria.  This community was started on YouTube by author John Green and his brother Hank (William) Green. What started as a project of them making daily YouTube videos has spread far beyond YouTube. An online community could be as simple as six thousand members in a local chicken keeping group (Facebook, n.d.). Some of these online communities are rooted in the physical world. They could be an extension of an existing physical community, or the online community could spill over to the physical world.

Another online community group is the health care online communities. Many of these are rooted in healthcare providers' networks. These health care providers can offer forums for patients to interact. Because of patient privacy laws, these medical provider communities could be highly restrictive and moderated. There are online healthcare communities that have been set up by a group of people independent of a specific medical provider.

For the financial online communities there is cryptocurrency which is innovation in regards to currency. The cryptocurrency bitcoin started as a niche community and was barely known outside of it. In recent years cryptocurrency is integrating into traditional financial institutions and the trading market. Many people believe that cryptocurrency is the future of currency and are starting to invest in this area. With cryptocurrency, the community members process the transactions. Many times these are the crypto miners. Cryptocurrency online communities are more than just those that process the transactions (Kim et al., 2017). There are cryptocurrency communities created for users to interact, learn and follow the trading market of cryptocurrencies and its coins. This community is composed of big investors known as big whales and small investors and includes people from all over the world who transfer and exchange their currencies for cryptocurrency. Proponents of cryptocurrency argue that it frees the financial market from the interference of nations. While detractors of cryptocurrency argue that without the regulation and monitoring of nations cryptocurrency will continue to be too volatile to be used as a standard of exchange and that it will be relegated to criminal enterprises.

Online communities have been created as a virtual or second life for people. It mimics many aspects of one’s real life. The main purpose of an online community is to communicate with others by decreasing distance between people all across the globe, where everyone could communicate with each other no matter how far or what the time zone is. People started using online communities so much that it expanded to provide a community shopping experience, credit card transactions, money transfers, and even item exchanges within an online community. It is now not only for communication but for business.

Inside some online communities, there are creators and influencers. A creator is someone who makes content on the internet, generally for public consumption. The term creator is most often used on video platforms like Youtube but can exist on other platforms. Online communities can grow around a creator or a group of creators. Again, like other online communities, these can span across multiple platforms. A more exclusive platform that creators sometimes use is Patreon (Patreon, n.d.). This is a fundraising platform that allows creators (or anyone) to raise money to support their content. Platforms like Patreon have allowed creators to dedicate more time to their content and for some, it is allowed them to do it full time.

The term influencer (Guest Blogger, 2021) is harder to define than creators. Once a user on a social media platform has a large number of subscribers, followers, or friends they may describe themselves as an influencer. The idea is that the user can influence their audience. Many times they use this “influence” to market products. Others may use this new found “power” to try to demand products to review.  An influencer could be a creator, but that is not a necessity.

No matter the platform(s) or format(s) of an online community there are benefits and detriments to online communities. Online communities by their nature are social, but social media is a part of online communities. The social aspect of online communities many find enjoyable. They enjoy interacting with other people around the world.  For some, this could fill a void that they can not find with interactions in the physical world. During the restrictions of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the draw to online communities increased. People could not have physical interactions so they were left with online interactions. Some individuals have unmet needs that online communities help fulfill (Sharma & De Choudhury, 2018). A positive online community could assist someone with mental health needs and concerns. The sense of belonging can be a powerful feeling to many. There are some that find psychological and social enjoyment in participating in online brand communities (Hsieh et al., 2022). One of these brands is Legos (Community, n.d.). While there is an ‘official’ community on the Lego website. There are online Lego communities that are not controlled by Lego (Best online community for Lego Builders?, n.d.).

Online communities are useful for business networking. These online business communities can help find professionals in similar and related fields. Like any online community, they could be broad or geographically narrow. There could be an online community for a building trade in a specific state. This community could be a valuable resource on navigating licensing and permit requirements as well as the stated building code. Some of these online business communities could be based on a trade association or they could be completely independent.

Some online communities come about not so much by choice but by necessity. The rapid increase in the number of e-learning communities that have popped up in the last couple of years, for example (p). Many of these are fairly rigid e-learning platforms, but some have expanded beyond that. Students and parents have formed their own groups within these communities. They may use Zoom, Facebook, Twitter, or email to participate in these online communities. While these online communities do have their disgruntled members and could devolve into anarchy, most benefit the students in their studies and offer a needed outlet and break from learning.

Online communities can be comforting to some people with disabilities (both physical and mental). They may feel uncomfortable interacting or unable to interact in physical communities. These communities could be developed as a support system for them or they could be other types of communities. The key is that they are able to find a positive and safe environment. And this is not always the case.

There are several online veteran communities. These communities can be helpful for disabled veterans trying to navigate the bureaucracy of the Veterans Administration, or just looking for people with similar experiences. There are online communities for veterans and military family members.

Just as a positive online community could have positive effects on a person's social and psychological well being, a negative or toxic online community could have devastating effects on a person's social and psychological well being. These online communities could foster activities like cyberbullying. These communities could be racist, sexist, or both. The interactions within these communities could be aggressive and argumentative. A person with low self esteem could have a hard time in an online community like this.  The sense of belonging could prevent them from leaving the online community. The more desperately they want to belong to these toxic online communities the worse their psychological well being will become. The psychological harm they face in online communities could lead them to harming themselves (van Geel et al., 2014). Younger people tend to have a harder time emotionally and psychologically to negative online communities, but people of all ages can have detrimental effects from these online communities. The harm that can be inflicted does not need to be self inflicted. Something else that could happen in an online community is cyberstalking (Alexy et al., 2005). This could be someone tracking a person's online footprint to locate them in the physical world. Once they are found in the physical world they could be beaten, robbed, raped, or murdered.

People need to be aware of their privacy (or lack of privacy) when interacting in an online community. Some communities allow for a person to use an alias, while some insist that you use your real name. Care needs to be taken with what information is shared in an online community. People could use details in pictures, comments made, or frequented locations to find out where someone lives, goes to school, or works. Sometimes it is as easy as putting in the person's name and area where they think they live into a search engine to get this information. Additionally, an employer could be monitoring activity in online communities. They could find out that the day you called in sick, you were really at a concert. Or that you are job hunting. If a person is working multiple jobs the employers may be able to find that out if they add either or both jobs to their LinkedIn profile (Feintzeig, 2021).

In an e-learning environment students are forced to transition from a traditional learning environment. When students are forced from a traditional learning environment into an e-learning environment, students and parents could face great obstacles (Lynch, 2020). Those with learning disabilities can have trouble adapting to the new online e-learning community. While some students can thrive in an e-learning community, many of those that were thrust into them in 2020 had a difficult time with it. Younger students seem to have a more difficult time than teenagers and adults. Additionally, teachers were also thrown into these communities with no planning or warning. They needed to know how to adapt their lesson plans to a virtual environment. Being forced into online communities can have psychological effects. We still don’t know what social and psychological effects there will be on teachers, students, and parents from it. And it may be hard to fully explore that in the haze of the pandemic.

Online communities continue to evolve. Soon, as announced by Facebook, the metaverse is coming to “life” (Meta, 2021) and bringing online communities to a whole other level which is full 3-dimensional interaction. Besides people just clicking to chat which evolved into calls and video calling, now everyone will be able to move and transpose their body movements onto others in real time. A hug for example will be able to be given to someone across the globe through machines used by both people. Will the future of online communities involve wearing a VR headset? Will it be like so many sci-fi shows and involve holograms? Will geographic specific online communities offer services like grocery or fast food pickup, circumventing services like Grubhub and Instacart? The future of online communities will evolve based on several factors. The first factor is what the technology could provide. The next factor will be the sense and needs of the communities themselves. The third factor is if someone could figure out how to make money and turn it into a business model.

Online communities have evolved over the decades, and continue to evolve. As technology grows, so do the possibilities for online communities. While new platforms will inevitably create new online communities, as stated earlier online communities do not need to be bound to a platform. The existing online communities will expand into or move to these new platforms. I do not believe the essence of these communities will change with the new platforms and technology they will just evolve.

The benefits will continue and may even improve. Technologies and platforms may provide better services for those with disabilities for example. While still providing the social benefit of belonging that they do today; the psychological joy that community members experience may increase as new ways of interacting emerge.

The detriments will not disappear. Technology does not change human nature. There will be those that will try to demean and bully others. Criminals will continue to use technology for any gain they can. And, privacy will be just as important as it is today, if not more so. Online communities can be wonderful places to interact with others. But, just like any community one needs to be aware of their surroundings, and know not to trust everyone.

References

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Creativity and New Media

ok take two. the  first time i tried this it deleted after four sentences. I guess that is the downside of laptops.

Now where was I?... oh yeah... to be creative with new media. this is hard because i am boring. my youtube videos are boring.  I could be cliche and do a video of me explaining this assignment. or i could video myself typing this blog. but i am shy and don't like videoing myself. I don't even like using my real name on social media. or i can add boring images that i have created. to use is different new media applications.
I can't even find any of my animated gif images.and i know i have some flash media somewhere.

Creativity

New media can instill creativity , and it can also stunt it. How many people do we see doing the same thing that everyone else does! We all can’t be a Mark Zuckerberg, as cliche as that sounds. While, people like Zuckerberg create the canvas, it is the individual user that fills it in. it could be a user posting a Youtube video, an app designer or or someone posting that they just ate a taco. Other ‘canvas’ developer are Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson who created Myspace. this medium became over designed but none the less a way for users to be creative.

There are are sure to me new canvases to be developed. Some will be widely popular, as others will be fairly unknown. and others will find a way to use the existing canvases in new ways like Mashups. As Sasha Frere-Jones explains in “1+1+1=1 The new math of mashups”, these are “ in which, generally, the vocal from one song is laid over the music from another.”

Creativity is creativity, someone who is creative will express themselves regardless of the media used. This was a problem (and still is) with the traditional media of signage. Before computers were used to make signs you needed a sign painter who knew such things as air spacing and kerning. then came computers and anyone who could use a mouse and type (or hunt and peck) could create a sign. while sign painting is a dying art form, a good sign can be created by a creative and well trained graphic designer. Taking images from his/her mind onto the canvas of a computer screen to a storefront.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

blog about twitter

a forum is a forum is a forum.....

Message boards go back to the days of dial up Bulletin Board Systems (BBS's).
Most are the same. you post a topic or a subtopic in a topic and people post replies.
it is basically the same for the Blackboard Discussion, a twitter discussion or sites like yuku.com.
Some may have different formats, character length or requirements. Sometimes I wonder if developers just try to reinvent the wheel and call it a new product.
Now an in class discussion is different, you need to be quick on your feet (or seat) you don't have the luxury to wait and think about it and respond at your leisure. If you did that, the class most likely be on a whole new topic, or sub topic.

Social Networking Sites

One of the origins of social networking sites come from user blog sites. I don’t remember the early ones, I think one was called Xanga or something. Then one of the earlier sites was Myspace. at First it was a personal page where you can link to friends; it had a generic format. Then users started formatting their pages with CSS and HTML and there lies its downfall. You go to most users Myspace pages now and you have layers of iframes, tables, backgrounds with uncontrasting text colors that makes it unreadable. After that, you will most likely hear music, and if you are very lucky only one song at a time. The user may only post a single song or jukebox (but some add muiliples) that auto plays, but then other users will add songs to comments. I have no idea how that seams like a good idea. So not only can you not read the page, but you can’t hear it clearly either.

As Myspace started it decline, Facebook started it rise. Facebook has a ridged format, on pages. Users have little control over how the content is displayed. Facebook will even make changes to the format against a users will. For example their new “timeline” format that many are saying will be mandatory soon. A feature that attracted (and still attracts) users to Facebook is the apps. Myspace has since added apps but I feel this was too little too late. The apps on Facebook can be user generated in there Application Development area. While most know the apps from big companies like Zyanga’s Facebook, Words with Friends, and Cityville, others are made by regular users like a now defunct app Human Pets.  Another feature of Facebook is Status Updates.

It is these status updates that i feel twitter got it’s idea from. Tweets are like a cross between a status update and a sms(text) message.They have a character limit of 140 and users can ‘follow’ and ‘retweet’ a users ‘tweet’. Businesses use (or try to use) twitter to promote their business like Samsung’s “Samsung Nation”. It was also widely reported that twitter instrumental in the “Arab Spring” revolutions. I feel this may be why nations are putting pressure on Twitter to ‘censor’ content in their counties that is ‘unlawful’.

Another type of social networking site is the ‘professional’ social networking site, like LinkedIn. This site is the site job seekers hope future employees look at, but that is not the case. LinkedIn is basically a extended resume site, with a social media spin on it. It shows who is ‘connected’ to the user. it shows the “professional networking” that the user has. this site has little incentive for users to come back. for an HR manager this may be a wonderful site, but most users won’t have a large use for it on a daily basis.

And like I stated at the end of my last blog, there are other sites like like Google+ that are emerging. so I think that is a good place to end this blog.