The power of knowledge and linked data

When tying many of my blogs together, there are the common threads of knowledge, transparency, knowledge, discernment, knowledge, time, knowledge, technology, knowledge, information, knowledge, reputation, knowledge, and connectedness.  For knowledge there needs to be information.  The more information we contribute to this "single global machine that we are constructing" (Kelly, 2007), the more knowledge there will be in this think tank.  This leads to making what seems impossible possible.  In 2007, when Kevin Kelly gave his TEDTalk, the web was using 5% of global electricity and almost the same number of links as synapses in one human brain (55 trillion links/synapses).  By 2040, he surmised that the web would exceed humanity in processing power.  That is exciting on so many levels.  The plethora of information we will continue to have available to us, along with the resources our children and grandchildren will have, facilitates endless dreaming and creativity.  The key, just as I have discussed in previous blogs, is taking the time ourselves to learn and to teach them healthy boundaries and to be able to discern what is true.

In 1993 and 1994 AT&T produced an ad campaign entitled "You Will".  There were many things presented that seemed impossible at that time.  Here are some of the things they asked:
1.  Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away?  We now have Amazon and Kindles.
2.  Have you ever crossed the country without stopping for directions?  We now have GPS.
3.  Have you ever sent someone a fax from the beach?  Now we do.
4.  Have you ever bought concert tickets from a cash machine?  Yes!
5.  Have you ever tucked your baby in from a phone booth?  We now have Facetime.
6.  Have you ever opened doors with the sound of your voice?  We now have voice activated smart homes.
7.  Have you ever attended a meeting barefooted?  We now have video conferencing.
8.  Have you ever watched a movie the minute you wanted to?  We now have DVR.
9.  Have you ever learned special things from far away places?  We can now attend college online.
10.  Have you ever put your heads together when you're not together?  Example:  Doctors can now be in a locker room with an injured athlete and video conference doctors at the hospital and digitally send x-rays to discuss what needs to be done.
11.  Have you ever gotten a phone call on your wrist? 
12.  Have you ever had a classmate who's thousands of miles away?  Again, we have online schooling.
13.  Have you ever conducted business in a language you don't understand?  There are programs that translate as you are typing/speaking.

14.  Have you ever kept an eye on your home when you're not at home?  We now have the ability to control our lights, internal temperature, security system, garage door, and many other aspects of our home from our smart phone.

Twenty years ago, many of these things seemed impossible.  However, many people and companies had a vision.  In these ads, AT&T answered every question with "YOU WILL".  They had vision and they were confident.  Because of technological advances and data being linked, many of these aforementioned dreams have become reality.  In his TEDTalk, Tim Berners-Lee states, "The more things you have to link together the more powerful it is".  An analogy to this would be the root system of a plant.  The more roots it has linked to it, the more it is fed and the stronger it becomes.  When data is linked to something, it turns into information that can be used.  Dreams can then begin sprouting.  Kevin Kelly posits, "We will become completely co-dependent upon the web."  Joe Touch, director at the Information Sciences Institute USC, says, "The Web will be a seamless part of how we live our everyday lives."  Everything is feeding into the Web.  It is the most reliable machine ever made because it has run uninterrupted and has never crashed. This is why we need to realize our ideas are important and necessary to invest into the world of knowledge.  One idea may seem irrelevant.  However, when linked with other ideas and data, it can help make a dream reality.

There is another side to this coin.  The Internet and web is also making it easier for people to seek out only the news and information that entertains them and confirms their own values.  This is where we cannot become lazy in our search for knowledge, truth, and discernment.  We need to understand that more and more uninformed individuals with a group-think, group-speak, and mob mentality are influencing others to the detriment of standard of living and effective government.  Another factor that technology companies need to seriously take into consideration regarding their image and community/global involvement is not leaving the undeveloped nations and lower income groups behind.  In one of my previous blogs, I discussed Ethan Zuckerman and the group in which he is involved, Global Voices.  They travel the world with the goal of getting us out of our filter bubbles and getting us interested in other "flocks" and truly conversing globally.  We don't simply need the ideas of wealthy, Caucasian Americans.  Knowledge pertains to all cultures, all races, all income levels, all religions, all languages, and all ages.  Inequality is enabled and amplified via networked transactions that benefit smaller segments of the global population. The idea of comprehensive global connectivity and being able to hear the voices and ideas of people everywhere is exciting!  The children in Madagascar have a voice and wonderful ideas and dreams that need to be heard and implemented into the world of linked data.  People in countries that are limited by their government regarding Internet usage and dissemination such as Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Tunisia, Syria, People's Republic of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Burma, and North Korea have amazing ideas that need to have a voice and be part of dreams.  Having the world share in their dreams and help make them a reality seems impossible to them now.  We can ask them "have you ever" about many things and, with optimism, reply "YOU WILL!"

Children are brilliant butterflies

One of the many joys I have being a mom is watching in amazement as my children figure things out around them.  The children of this generation are sometimes termed "tech kids" because they are being raised in a digital era where technology is advancing rapidly.  In developed countries, most of these children will never know what it is like to communicate without the internet, without cell phones, and without iPads or the like.  My three-year-old can pick up an iPad, iPod, or iPhone and immediately begins pushing buttons and sliding screens to figure out where he wants to go.  It's almost like a fluent non-verbal language. Cause and effect are running through his brain at enormous speeds, and it seems to only take one time to learn it.  I want to say, "Wait!  How did you do that?".  When my middle son was in first grade, the first time he saw his teacher use the smart board he was able to get on the laptop and control the smart board.  He could do presentations and artwork on it.  When I recently got my first smart phone, my two oldest sons (ten and fourteen) decided I needed their advice on apps, which pictures I needed for my screensavers (they called them something else), and how to navigate away from pages and hide them so they did not drain my battery.  There was so much they wanted to teach me and their brains were working so fast that they couldn't even get the words out fast enough.  It was very fascinating.

In her TEDTalk video entitled "What do babies think?", Alison Gopnik posits, "Children are the brilliant butterflies and adults are the caterpillars.  Babies and children are the research and development of the human species and adults are the production and marketing.  Adults have to take all the ideas we learned earlier and put them to good use".  Children fly freely and take in everything around them and absorb it like a sponge.  Adults tend to inch along later in life.One example that comes to mind is my nephew, Zack.  From a very early age he could see a car and give you the make, model, and sometimes the year.  He loves to figure out how things work.  He doesn't want to simply hear an awesome motor, he wants to open the hood and see how it works.  He has always loved putting Legos together in many different ways to see how they work together.  This research he has been doing over the past twelve years and continues to do will serve him well into the future when he possibly becomes a mechanical engineer.  Since he was a toddler, our oldest son would be in a group with his playmates and we could watch the wheels turning in his brain.  He might not say a lot, but he would eventually step in and facilitate the project at hand.  Whether it was organizing how the playdoh went into the proper containers, how to sit in a circle for Duck, Duck, Goose, or how to glue the paper scraps on the paper to make a picture, he was organizing the project in his mind and helping the ones he thought were struggling (in other words, not doing it his way).  Two summers ago he was accepted into the Bernard Harris Engineering Camp at the University of South Alabama.  At twelve years old, it was beyond cool to live as a college student for two weeks on campus.  On the day that Bernard Harris (a former NASA astronaut and his foundation sponsors the camp) was there, one of the projects was to build a mach panel for an astronaut's helmet that could best withstand meteoroids in space that can travel up to 8000 meters per second.  The students were placed into teams and given a budget and list of materials they could use to engineer the panel.  Bernard Harris then placed the completed panels in a machine that dropped a heavy metal stake into the panel to see if it withheld the force.  I watched Cameron, my oldest son, quietly begin to lead the team and help facilitate the project.  Hopefully his quiet and subtle leadership abilities will serve him well in his career.

Shilo Shiv Suleman is an Indian young lady with immeasurable creativity.  She was illustrating children's books as a teenager.  Shilo was originally terrified of technology and feared it would stifle creativity.  She has since greatly embraced technology.  In her TEDTalk video entitled "Using tech to enable dreaming", she believes that "technology should enable magic, not kill it".  I can see her as a toddler coloring her pictures that only make sense to her, then as a young child telling a story via pictures that others could recognize, and now she is optimally using technology to bring her stories to life and connect storytellers all over the world via iPad and other technologies.  She is merging sounds, images, and interactive capabilities to enable people to embed themselves in her stories.  It's amazing, and it all began with the imagination of a brilliant butterfly that could barely walk or talk.

Gopnik says, "A baby's brain is the most powerful computer on the planet.  When children play they are actually doing a series of experiments".  I love watching my youngest son play with his water table. He will put different things in the water like sand, grass, rocks, and leaves to see if they sink or float.  He will see if they go down the swirly water tube in the middle.  He will turn the water wheel fast and slow to determine how much or how little the water splashes.  He will then get in his pool and attempt to mimic some of the same experiments.  When children play baseball in the yard, it becomes various forms of the game.  With a little dirt, some sticks, and little plastic soldiers, the backyard can become an enormous battleground complete with moats and forts. The battle lasts all day and ends up including several neighborhood kids.  If this fort doesn't work, let's blow it up and build a better one.  These children growing up in the digital era can now take this imagination back inside and recreate this world digitally and share it with other friends and include them in the project.  The creative possibilities are endless.

"Babies and children have a lantern of consciousness instead of a spotlight of consciousness like adults.  They are very good at taking in lots of information from lots of different sources" (Gopnik).  This is why it is imperative to allow children to play and interact outside as well as inside where many children are glued to devices.  This time of childhood is highly correlated to knowledge and learning.  Children will be increasingly living and operating in a digital world, and interaction cannot become extinct.  The more sources of knowledge they are exposed to open up a bigger space for learning.  A great merging of the outside with technology is geocaching.  Geocaching is a very creative way to explore your town and other places you visit.  It is where people with hide a "cache" that is then located by others who are geocaching. There are literally millions of geocaches scattered through more than 185 countries around the world.  This is a wonderful activity for family time and to foster a child's creativity and application of technology.  Geocachers use  iPhone apps, GPS systems, mobile phones, and laptops to research and find caches.  Gopnik likens a baby's capacity to constantly take in innumerable elements of knowledge to the feeling of falling in love in Paris after three double espressos.  That gives adults a shaky feeling.  It spurs babies on to learn a million more things in the next sixty seconds! 

Let me know the brilliant things your children have done and are doing.  It is exciting to take some time and pay attention!  I'd love to hear from YOU!

Competition and Successful Branding

When I think about brands some that come to mind are Starbucks, Gap, Nike, Under Armour, Easton, Barnes and Noble, BeautiControl, Academy, Dicks' Sporting Goods, and Yankee candles.  Why do these come to mind?  Because I use these products and take advantage of their services.  But branding is not about the name.  Entrepreneur.com defines branding as "the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products".  The legal term for brand is trademark.  In class we have been discussing the power of a strong logo and/or slogan, especially how it relates to Troy University.  For Troy, I love the personalization of "where students are known by name, not by number".  However, many universities actually use this slogan and it seems more repetitious than unique.  The slogan "educate the mind to think, the heart to feel, and the body to act" seems to inspire what many people are looking for in this fast-paced society and technological advancements that are almost too much to stay ahead of.  This slogan, to me, shows that Troy University (it was Troy State when I received my undergraduate degree) is willing to take the time for each student on the things that matter most in life to succeed personally as well as professionally.  There are no barriers inherent in this slogan, therefore further validating Troy as a university that crosses cultural, racial, geographical, religious, and linguistic boundaries. One slogan that I have always liked is "advancing knowledge, transforming lives" that Michigan State University uses.  It sets the tone that education leads to a better quality of life.  It is a shared vision between students and their college leadership. 

Everyone has an opinion, and they are expressing it through digital media.  In ascertaining the best branding slogan, it would be wise to poll the faculty, administration, students, and alums on their views of the university and the pros and cons.  Research what is being said about the organization via traditional media as well as social media networks and blogs.  One facet that can be added wherever Troy's logo is placed is a link to a virtual tour that is entertaining (Greek organizations, sports, clubs, food venues, intramurals, etc.) as well as informative and highlighting Troy's many strengths. Marketing Troy's culture, personality, and experience are as important as our sports teams and facilities.  High-schoolers as well as 41-year-old stay at home moms are looking for an educational place to fit (the latter is ME).  I applied immediately with Troy for my graduate program because my undergraduate experience on campus 20 years ago was so awesome!  Troy's overall strategy to form its on-campus communities as well as international and online communities and provide them with an impeccable education need to be present not only in the logo, but in a prospective student's campus visit, in the classroom, during events, reflected in the architecture (which Troy has exceeded expectations), and in its publications. It is important to persistently communicate the same message.  Oftentimes, saying too many things at the same time ends up saying too little.  I am really proud of Troy's marketing strategy and the integrity it entails.  Go Trojans!
 

When it comes to branding, we don't simply want a piece of the pie.  We want it all and it needs to be delicious to whoever is consuming it with us.  Not only do we want our mission to be one of integrity, our products and services to be impeccable, our corporate social responsibility to be generous, but we need to hold our internal corporate values to a high standard as well.  Companies need to treat their employees and clients very well.  Unfortunately, many management teams are increasingly disconnected from their staff.  One factor inherent in successful branding is relationships with employees as well as customers.  According to Tim Leberecht, this "turns transactions into interactions and generosity into a currency". His TEDTalk was entitled "Three ways to (usefully) lose control of your brand (reputation)".  The truth is that giving employees more control over their work makes them happier and more productive.  For example, Netflix has an open vacation policy.  They gauge success by what employees accomplish instead of the amount of time they work.  This requires mature and responsible employees who care about high-quality work.  Awesome!  Another idea Leberecht offers is having employees complete altruistic activities during the day.  It makes them feel less pressed for time and increases their sense of productivity.  A daily heroes program can be set up when an employee is "caught" doing something nice for a client or fellow employee. 

In terms of voluntarily losing control, Leberecht posits, "Companies are utterly exposed to serendipity, and this should make them more humble and more human.  Staying true to yourself is the only sustainable value proposition".  Honesty and integrity are aligned with being respected.  Companies with a successful brand should remain open to all possibilities, especially with the social media explosion and inconceivable technological advancement.

Branding is also vital on a personal level, as well.  This entails marketing yourself and your career.  One of the main purposes is to stand out in your career.  Alonzo King said, "What's interesting about you is YOU".  This includes things such as online presence, experience, offline and online relationships, personality, industry description, and clarification of what you have to offer.  I am currently working on my "personal brand" and how I would communicate it via words.  Aside from being a Director of 158 ladies with BeautiControl, I have been a stay-at-home mom for 14 years.  Therefore, my skill set includes CEO, personal chef, head cheerleader, housekeeper, chauffeur, judge, PhD in Anger Management, hair stylist, therapist, teacher, finance manager, art director,

landscaper, lifeguard, stylist, event planner, travel agent and tour guide, seamstress, bodyguard, nurse, secretary, personal shopper, photographer, decorator, coach, and forensic investigator.  Wow!  Who wouldn't want to hire me? I am actually thoroughly enjoying scouting the landscape to enter the corporate world again.  The great thing is many corporate jobs now can be successfully completed at home, it usually saves corporations overhead expense and increases their bottom line, it affords an extraordinary boost in quality of life for many, optimum flexibility, employers can hire from anywhere and are not limited by location, and they get optimally productive and self-disciplined employees.  There are programs such as Basecamp to gather and communicate project information, many tools for online communication, and virtual water coolers to maintain social cohesion.  It is extremely efficient, and these employees are less interrupted by meetings, office noise, and management.  Many of these companies arrange employee meetings several times a year for face-to-face interaction.  The corporate world of today is much more exciting than it was 14 years ago and a degree in Strategic Communication was unnecessary 14 years ago.  Branding is essential in differentiating yourself and/or your company from others.  Companies explore personal brands, just as we research corporate brands.  The keys are inside out authenticity, integrity, passion, quality, and transparency.