Ryan's Blog

Before, I encourage you to view my Web Site project pitch, I must share with you a few of my experiences/challenges in completing this assignment. Instead of creating a video with me as a “talking head”, I took another route where I did not have to appear “on camera”. With a helpful hint from Dr. Alex, I decided to create a PowerPoint presentation, record a MP3 audio and upload it on to SlideShare. Yes, this did include a few extra steps but I wanted to learn how to use SlideShare because many of the slideshows posted on YouTube have provided me with many useful tips in completing some of our assignments for this course. I always wondered how people created these slideshows with audio and uploaded them online. Now this may sound ridiculous to someone who can do something like that in their sleep but keep in mind I had never even uploaded a song to my I-pod before I started this course seven weeks ago! I know I am pathetic but I have vowed to always be honest in my postings and that is the sad truth.

Here is the UGLY truth about my struggles in creating this pitch:

-       PowerPoint Presentation – I am not a WHIZ at PowerPoint. I just started to use PowerPoint a few months ago when I began to help a colleague create slides to display on TV screens in the cafeteria of our building. These slides usually only include a sentence or two about an upcoming event at work such as “Blood Drive Next Week – Sign Up Today” and a graphic. So my PowerPoint presentation for my pitch is light on text, I feared the “death by bullet point” reference Dr. Alex warned us about. And I included a few amusing graphics that I thought related to my text.

-       Audio Recording – I used Audacity to record my audio. It was the second time I used it, the first time was for our first audio posting assignment. The second time around was much easier for me and converting my audio to a MP3 was a “piece of cake”.

-       SlideShare – Uploading the PowerPoint and audio recording was easy. The hard part was trying to synchronize the audio with the appropriate slide. I just did NOT have the magic touch, I would over-shoot the timing or under estimate the timing of each slide and I could not get it just right. After many attempts as well as viewing YouTube clips for helpful hints, I decided I probably should not mess with it more and decided it was best to warn viewers that my timing is a bit off on the slides.

There you have it, this assignment proved to be yet another challenger for me but I am proud and relieved that I actually accomplished.  Click here to view a link to my Website Project Pitch. It is definitely not Spielberg material but for someone who started this course seven weeks ago without any knowledge of how to record audio or develop a video recording, I feel as if I have come a long way.

Below are links to references I mention in my pitch:

State’s Technical High Schools Working To Emphasize ‘Green’ Skills

Governor’s Green Jobs Initiative

Fuel Cell Company Website

No  not the Michael Jackson song but remember the time….when your parents told you Santa Claus was not real?  When you were told you needed braces three days before the beginning of your freshman year of high school? When the man of your dreams broke your heart? Then did it again and again? When your dad told you he had cancer? When your mom told you that there was nothing more the doctors could do for your dad?

 Yes, yes and yes! These are all memories that I remember but would LOVE to forget! However, I have a ritual that helps me remember all the good times. When I need a “little pick me-up”, I take out one of three shoeboxes stored underneath my bed that are full of photos, birthday cards, letters and other trinkets. I look through the pictures, read the letters and cards and without fail…that little trip down memory lane makes me feel so much better. It is like therapy for my soul.

 Although I love to reminisce about the “good ol days”, I cannot imagine going to the extent that Gordon Bell does to “lifelog”. Bell records every moment of his day to day life.  He evens wears a camera around his neck to capture video of literally every step he takes. As I mentioned in a post from last week, my life is not that interesting. I can not imagine why I would ever want to capture every second of my day. Don’t get me wrong, I feel blessed to have my health and the opportunity to enjoy another day on this earth but I do not feel the need to capture every blink of my eye, every step I take and every casual conversation I have.

 I also hate clutter!! I try to maintain a zen-like atmosphere in my apartment, my car, my desk and that includes my computer. The thought of having files and files of my everyday humdrum life stored on my computer would drive me nuts! I am sticking to my shoeboxes because they are easy to maintain and in them lies the secret to happiness….a loving family, loyal friends and a whole lot of laughs!

I was not familiar with fabrication labs (“fab labs”) before I watched Neil Gershenfeld’s TED presentation The Beckoning Promise of Personal Fabrication. Although my knowledge of “fab labs” is limited, I support the idea of empowering locals with tools to build solutions to solve local problems. Who knows the problem better than the people whose daily lives are impacted by it? Sure, engineers can build sophisticated products that solve the problem. But, what if the solution is too complicated to use or not conducive to the daily lives of the members of that community? Then the locals will not embrace the new way and will continue to live with the problem and complain about it for years to come. I have heard the same scenario time and time again from friends who have volunteered in the Peace Corps or American Corps. You can bring funding, projects and investments to people but if the invention, program or solution is not easy-to-use and cannot be easily adapted into their daily life then it will not be a success.  Members of the local community may embrace this new idea for a few days but the excitement will wear off and frustration will settle in and they will stop using the solution and it will bring them back full circle to the place they started from….an unresolved problem with no clear solution.

 “Fab labs” offer local people a rare opportunity to solve local problems. Some may think that “fab labs” are a leap of faith because people like Gershenfeld are assuming that the locals will be interested and willing to participate in the “fab labs” but speaking from my past experience in grassroots organization, I think fab labs are a wonderful concept. People appreciate the opportunity to participate in issues or solutions that help solve a local problem. It is amazing how much inside information and expertise a local can provide about a problem. They are the people directly impacted by the problem. They are not restricted by their knowledge of engineering and the “right” and “wrong” of that science. They are farmers, artisits, shop owners, children and others that can offer a fresh set of eyes, a new perspective and an open mind.

 After watching Gershenfeld’s TED presentation, I conducted a GoogleNews search to read more about “fab labs”, I wanted to know more about where fab labs are located and what people have created in these the labs. I came across D.R. Stewart’s article for Tulsa World, Science Nonfiction: Creating the Future with Today’s Technology.  Stewart interviewed Gershenfeld for his article and provides us with more detail about the structure of a “fab lab”, he writes:

 “MIT engineers and their Fab Lab counterparts are setting up $20,000 to $50,000 “desktop factories” throughout the world — connected via the Internet — to create computer networks, locally needed tools and technology that are improving the quality of life and providing jobs.”

 I think it is smart to recruit local people to solve local problems, they can relate to the problem better than an outside expert. And we know now how powerful grassroots and community organizing can be…it paved the road for Obama to reach the White House.

 The “fab lab” is yet another example of how technology is empowering the individual by equipping “amateurs” with the necessary tools to tap into their own creativity and personal talents to build new solutions. I believe every individual offers a unique perspective and I think allowing individuals across the world the opportunity to create solutions is a powerful and positive initiative.

Has Texting Killed Romance?!

To the horror of my younger brother and sister, as you may recall, I confessed in our two day orientation back in August that I am a huge fan of romantic comedies. The sappier, the better! It maybe because, at 29, I have yet to met my one true love, I am still searching for my “Noah” (if anyone has seen The Notebook, they know what I mean!) I love to live vicariously through the trials and tribulations of the love-struck characters in these movies because I have no romance in my life.

The last time I was asked out on a date in-person was circa 2003. Since then, I have been set-up on “virtual” blind dates, friends who have passed along my e-mail address or cell-phone number to a potential suitor who then asks me out via an e-mail or text message. But it does not feel as cute and charming as the courtship of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail. The text or email I receive seems so generic, so convenient, and so not romantic. The guys always send the same message, “Hey, your friend gave me your e-mail address/number. Do you want to grab drinks this week?” I always say “yes” because I never know when Mr. Right may come along. He could be the one who just sent me a two-sentence e-mail or text that began with a casual “hey”.

As you can imagine, I enjoyed reading Rheingold’s chapter, “Shibuya Epiphany” from the book Smart Mobs because I learned that I was not alone, women all over the world are being asked out on dates via text messages. According to Rheingold’s research:

One of the most obvious early impacts on the level of the immediate social network is the role of texting in youthful mating rituals. Because they can take their time to compose their message, and because they don’t have to face rejection in person, young men in Scandinavian and elsewhere have found it easier to ask for dates. (p. 26).

Although, I would still like to consider myself “youthful”, I am not nor are my suitors. I would like to inform Rheingold that women in their late twenties are also being asked out via text message. I give guys credited for asking girls out, I have never asked a guy out because it is intimidating! I tell people that I have never asked a guy out because “I am old-fashion” and believe a guy should ask a girl out but the truth is I don’t want to be rejected. So I understand why men have resorted to asking women out via text messages because if they do get rejected they can simply “delete” the message and act as if it never happened.

However, I do feel as if today’s youth who grew up with cell phones may be robbed of some of life’s great lessons (and most awkward moments)  I wonder how many girls were asked to the prom via text message last year? Or how many girls were dumped via text messages? It almost feels as if text messages are a crutch, a safety guard for today’s youth who can “hide behind their cell-phones” instead of engaging in “face to face” conversations with a crush. How do you translate blushing, butterflies in your stomach and being swept off your feet via a text? To me a virtual courtship does not seem as exciting as the real thing!  

 I will admit that although I long for one of those great love stories in my life, I am a HUGE  hypocrite because like anyone else who has a crush, I am thrilled when I receive a text message from the guy I am interested in. The text makes my day because it means that he is thinking about me.  But when I think about it more…it does feel al bit like settling!  I have to ask myself….Does receiving a text of an image of a dozen roses replace how I feel when I receive a real bouquet of roses? Does a sweet text replace receiving a love letter? Does a “virtual” smiley face replace actually seeing my crush in person smile at me and make me feel as if I am the only woman in the room?! Does a gift sent via Facebook make up for the real thing?! I don’t think so and it makes me long for a return to real-life romance rather than “virtual romance”!

Team Dating

I believe text messaging has also contributed to a new form of dating, one I have dubbed as “team dating”. I cannot tell you how many times my best friend from college who lives half-way across the country has called me to tell me about an e-mail or text message she has received from a potential suitor. She will read the message to me over the phone and then ask, “What should we write back? I want my reply to be witty and sassy. Help!” So we brainstorm together, I come up with at least three potential responses; she critiques them until we decide on the right one. My best friend will say, “That is it! That is brilliant! Should I put a smiling face with a wink at the end so he knows I am joking?!”  I answer, “It is up to you” (but what I am really thinking is if this guy can’t figure out she is being sarcastic in her text then he is an idiot). My friend says, “I think I will add the winking face at the end. Thank you! I am going to send it right now and I will keep you posted on his response”. “Great, keep me posted”, I say. This virtual courtship will be my entertainment for the week until my friend decides she is “not that into this guy” and before I know it, I am helping her compose another text to a new guy.

 Like I said, I live vicariously through the lives of characters in romantic movies and my friends. How lame am I?! However, my ego is not bruised too badly because once again I am not alone!  According to Eija-Liisa Kasasniemi, a Finnish folklorist who researched the text message culture of Finnish teenagers found that, “text messages are circulated among friends, composed together, read together, and fitting expressions or entire messages borrowed from others” (p.16). The same holds true for single, American woman in their late-twenties. We share text messages with our girlfriends and as I explained above we even compose the reply message together. Hmmm….if my day job does not work out, I wonder if I should start a company where I develop responses to text messages for my friends. I can charge $5 per message. It would be a great way for me to make some “extra change” which I could spend on a much-needed new ward bore so when I do run into my Mr. Right, I will looking fabulous in a new outfit and will be ready to star in my very own real life love story. Boy meets girl in person…boy sweeps girl off her feet….boy and girl live happily ever after. What can I say?!….I still believe in fairy tales!

As I mentioned in a previous post, the purpose of my website is to fulfill requests and provide answers to my target audience of teachers and students who are interested in touring my company’s manufacturing facility and/or interested in having a guest speaker from my company make a presentation to a class.

 I want my website to be “user-focused”,  straightforward, easy-to-use and one that teachers and students will re-visit and will recommend to their peers. My website will educate students and teachers about my company, its products and the benefits of its products.

 My website is offering a service to users. I do not believe there will be any glaring legal or ethical issues. However, I have a limited background in legal and ethical issues as they relate to the creation of a website and more complex issues may arise as my idea becomes more than just a concept.

 Below are a few examples of some potential legal, privacy, ethical and copyright issues regarding my yet-to-be developed website.

 Privacy

 My website will serve not only as an educational and information site but also will allow students and teachers to fill out request forms that will be sent directly to a company employee who can help accommodate their requests or answer their questions

 This “submission form” will ask potential visitors for their contact information as well as ask them to answer a few questions that will help me or another employee decide on how to best accommodate their request.  This information would only be given to an employee who is planning the logistics for fulfilling the visitor’s request. I do not intend to share visitor’s information with anyone else besides the tour guide or presenter and I will tell the guide or presenter that they are not to share the visitor’s contact information or their answers to the questions with others.  

 To alleviate a user’s hesitation to share their contact information and answer questions, l will include a paragraph above the submission form that clearly explains why I am asking them to submit a form and how I plan to use their information.

 Ethical

 Ethically, I believe it is my responsibility to clearly explain the restriction on tours (i.e. the size of the class and the ages we can accommodate) because I want users to understand that there are safety restrictions that will not allow my company to accommodate large groups or young children. I recognize that the local school community is small and teachers and students talk to one another on a regular basis. I don’t want one school wondering why we cannot accommodate them but that we were able to provide another school with a tour. I think it is best to clearly explain what my company is capable of in terms of tours and presentations so that I can manage expectations. I don’t want to falsely promote a service that has its limits.

Legal Issues

 All the collateral material that I will post on my website is available to the public now  and is information that my company has distributed at press events, ribbon cutting ceremonies and trade shows. None of the information is confidential and the information can be passed along from person to person.

 However, the one legal rule I must follow is to clearly represent the trademark of our company’s products. All references to the name of a company product must be followed by ®.

 Besides the aforementioned issues, I do not anticipate too much legal, ethical or privacy concerns. I also have the privilege of working at a company that has a legal department and the lawyers will definitely review my website before they allow me to link it to our company’s homepage. I  don’t believe I am in the clear yet, I think as I begin to develop the website that I may come across more issues but at least now I have a basic understanding of these issues and they will certainly remain in my thoughts as I begin to create my first website.

I consider myself an ethical person. I obey the law, I treat others they way I would like to be treated, when I find a missing item, I always return it to Lost & Found, I recycle and I work for a company with a strict ethics code.

 I have been a corporate employee for a little over a year. I came from the agency world, to be more specific I came from a small, private agency.  One of the most glaring differences between my experience at the agency and in corporate America is the emphasis on business ethics and practices. Not to say, that my former employer did not expect each of its employees to behave and represent the agency in a professional and honest manner but it was not required that we take training or that we agree to follow a code of ethics. My former employer did not have a formal code of ethics, it was more of an unspoken code, employees were required to do their job well and to obey the law.

 However, on my first day at my current job in corporate America, I was introduced to the company’s “code of ethics” and told that each and every employee must learn it and follow it. I was also told that as a new employee, I was required to take a half dozen business ethics courses in my first two years on the job and after that I would be required to take four courses annually.

 The courses I took covered a variety of topics and each course had a short quiz at the end.  The quizzes muck like the Basse piece presented me with a variety of situations where ethics may arise. Am I allowed to accept a pen from a vendor? Can I eat lunch at a fundraiser if I did not personally pay for the meal? Am I allowed to tell a family member or friend who is employed by a competitor about a potential deal for my company? Some of the answers to the “scenario questions” were obvious but others were tricky. The right answer did not always seem obvious and I found myself having an internal debate about which answer was the correct one.

 Although I have always considered myself an ethical person, I did not earn 100 percent on all the course quizzes. I have NOT yet failed a course but I certainly found myself reviewing multiply choice answers a few times before I selected an answer. Sometimes all the answers seemed right to me or all of them seemed wrong. Baase touches on the complexity of ethics in Professional ethics and responsibilities, Baase writes, “there are many issues about which we have strong feelings, some related to our ethical views. It might be difficult to draw a line between what we consider ethically wrong and what we personally disapprove of” (p. 409). I agree with this statement and I think what makes ethics complicated is that it is often difficult for me and others to “take a step back” and separate themselves from their own opinions and beliefs.

 According to Base, ethics is the “study of what it means to do the right thing” (p. 403). So what would failing an ethics course say about me? I do not do the right thing. Am I a self-centered, greedy, immoral person?! Needless to say every time I begin an ethics course whether the subject is “antitrust law”, “how to e-mail safely”, “false marketing & advertising” or “business gifts”, I fear the quiz at the end because I can NOT fail. I don’t want to be labeled as an “untrustworthy” employee and I fear if I do fail then I will lose my job.

 It is a “pain in the neck” to set aside time in my work day to take a few forty minute ethics courses but I think it is smart of management to require employees to take these course because sometimes employees get “caught up” in uncomfortable or sticky situations and an awareness and education in ethics can help direct them down the “right path”. Ethics is not as easy to follow as the law because what is right and wrong is not always clearly defined. My advice is to “always trust your gut”. If a situation does not seem right, it is your responsibility to “raise a flag” because it is always better to be safe than sorry.

I have nothing to hide but that does not mean I want some web company tracking every click of my mouse. I don’t like the idea of someone tracking me unless it is Publishers Clearing House looking to present me with a big, fat check. I don’t want advertisers seeking me out through my internet searches and purchases.  It feels like they are invading my personal space. I want to conduct my searches without some pop up ad blocking my view or a banner ad flashing in my face. It almost feels as if pushy salespeople are following me into cyberspace. Pushy salespeople make me uncomfortable! I don’t like when someone I just met thinks they know me better than I know myself. The other day, I had a saleswoman running up to me, 30 seconds after I walked in the front door of a store. She had a shirt in hand, shoved it at me and said, “Go try this on! You are going to love this! It is your style”.

 My first reaction was to turn around because I assumed she must be talking to someone else because the shirt was definitely not my style and I was not even in there to find a shirt. I was looking for some new pants! But because I have “sucker” written all over my face, I ended up leaving the store with the new shirt that I will never wear and no pants! So as you can imagine, I am not a huge fan of the fact that overbearing, pushy salesperson I meet in real life seem to be following me into cyberspace. According to Louise Story’s New York Times article, To Aim Ads, Web is Keeping a Closer Eye on You, web companies are watching me and you more than I ever thought they would care to, Story writes, “A new analysis of online consumer data shows that large Web companies are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet, gathering clues about the tastes and preferences of a typical user several hundred times a month”.

 Several hundred times a month?! I did not even think I was on the internet several hundred times a month! Do these web companies know me better than I know myself?! Probably and maybe that is my problem with them following my every move. I don’t have much to hide, my life is quite boring. I almost feel like a robot. I go to work everyday, pay my bills on time and I am single with little prospects of meeting Mr. Right because my present work/school/life schedule allows for little if any social life. So my life is about as interesting as watching paint dry! However like the privacy rights advocates  interviewed in the CNBC Special: “Big Brother, Big Business”, I am uncomfortable with having someone eavesdropping on my cell-phone conversations or watching me as a shop or dine. It feels creepy. I recognize some of the benefits to this technology and I support the technology that helps police, the FBI and the government solve crimes but I am a little hesitant of some of the technology profiled in the CNBC special that seems more like voyeurism.  I don’t understand why Google needs to store all my internet searches or why they feel the need to save my deleted emails or why the government would want to listen to my phone conversations. The only person that seems to call me these days is my mom so the only conversation the federal agents would be listening to was how my day was at work and what errands my mom ran that day. My conversations certainly do not need to be shared with the President, the CIA or the FBI.

 Have you heard about Erin Andrews, the ESPN reporter who was changing her clothes in the privacy of her hotel room? Erin had no idea that someone had videotaped her until the video appeared on the internet for the whole world to see. Apparently someone had videotaped her through a peephole. How distributing and frightening! People are no longer safe behind the closed door privacy of their own hotel rooms.

Although I began this post by saying “I have nothing to hide”, the fact that strangers can eavesdrop on my phone conversations, read my personal emails and video tape me while I am in my hotel room or while I am ordering an entrée at a restaurant  makes me feel vulnerable. So you can guarantee the next time I pull up to a bar, change clothes in a hotel room, make a phone call or send an email, I will wonder if anyone else is inviting themselves to join my “private party”. After watching the CNBC Special, “Big Brother, Big Business”, I can’t seem to get the lyrics of Rockwell’s song “Somebody’s watching me” out of my head!

The topics for this week’s module are heavy subjects….legal, ethical and policy issues. The questions are endless…..Should the internet be regulated? How should it be regulated? Are you an advocate for net-neutrality? Are you pro-privacy? How do you determine what is ethically right and wrong in the age of the internet?

 Questions, thoughts, and concerns flooded my mind as I completed the assigned readings and watched the videos for module six. There is a lot to think about! I am not a lawyer or a policy expert and I will not pretend to be one online. However, I do believe I have a stake in this debate as does anyone who is a frequent internet user. It is smart that people educate themselves about these issues because they are being discussed and debated in the media, in board rooms, on Capitol Hill, and will certainly impact your own internet use at work and at play.

 I do not want the internet regulated so heavily that I will have to pay more for access to information. I know that I may sound spoiled but I already pay a monthly fee to Comcast for internet service. I don’t want the internet to turn into a “toll road” where I am required to “cough up some change” at every stop along one of my many daily internet searches. I experienced some of the “pay to play” sites on the web during week 3’s module. One of our assignments was to play at least two internet games. I am not “a gamer” and I did not have any games in mind I wanted to play so I did what any modern day person would do, I conducted an internet search. The search turned up thousands of games yet I only decided to play the free games. If a game required me to “pay to play”, I sighed, closed the game and moved on to the next game in my search.

 The same is true for newspaper and magazine articles. If I come across a search for an article that seems interesting, I will click on the link. If the website requires me to sign in and pay a fee, I will close the page and move to the next site. This is not only true for reviewing content but it also holds true for producing content. For the audio posting assignment, I decided to use Audacity to produce my audio recording because it was free and for our video posting I uploaded my video to YouTube free of charge.

 Right now, I am enjoying the freedom of having unlimited and free access to information on millions of websites. Many of these sites may ask me to agree to terms and conditions but after clicking through a few pages, and checking off “yes, I agree”, I and millions of users are in business. Users don’t have to have a music studio to create music or a production studio to shoot and produce video, all one needs is a computer and internet hookup. On the internet you get the good, the bad and the ugly and that is the beauty of the internet. Nothing is filtered, no executive in a corner office can determine if a user’s work can be shared with the public because individuals have the power to decide if they want to share their work with the world. All it takes is a click of a mouse and the user has access to a world-wide audience. It is incredible!

 As Larry Lessig said in his TED presentation, the internet and digital technology has allowed our culture to find what Sousa referred to as our “vocal chords”.  Today, anyone with a laptop and an internet hookup can produce music, art, video on the web and more often than not this user-generated content was created and distributed free of charge without strict regulations or financial charges. I agree with Lessing who argues that the internet has helped to encourage creativity among users. So as a frequent internet user who has created content on the internet, it is my responsibility to ask, What happens when the content that I once freely produced and distributed is regulated? How will it impact my use of the internet and the work I produced? I believe I will be less inclined to log onto my computer and create; it will deflate my enthusiasm because it not only takes away the freedom to create whatever content I want but it also takes the fun out of creating it.

 And I am not alone. There is a whole movement out there that supports Net-neutrality. The Humanity Lobotomy video that was assigned for this module is a perfect example of this movement. I also found this Grant Gross’s PC World Magazine article Study Pushes for Net Neutrality, New Journalism Models that cites the findings of a Knights Commission study which supports net-neutrality. Grant Gross wrote, “It is … a moment of journalistic and political opportunity,” the study said. “Information organizations, including many traditional journalistic enterprises, are embracing new media in unique and powerful ways, developing new structures for information dissemination and access. Political leaders and many government agencies are staking out ambitious agendas for openness. The potential for using technology to create a more transparent and connected democracy has never seemed brighter.”

 Regulations will surely put a price tag on internet use and will therefore limit internet use to many users. As a result of limited use, users will most likely be less inclined to create and share content because of the restrictions placed on them.  The access to unlimited information and the ability to create whatever users want and share that content with whomever the users want is what makes the internet so exciting, addicting and amazing. It has made everyday people into stars, it has allowed people with a common concern to ban together and fight for a cause and it has re-connected millions of friends around the world. What happens when you regulate it? I fear it may lose many of these positive attributes. In my search on this issue, I stumbled across Save the Internet, a non-profit organization that believes “the Internet is a crucial engine for economic growth, civic engagement and free speech” and their mission is to, “to urge Congress to preserve Net Neutrality, the First Amendment of the Internet, which ensures that the Internet remains open to new ideas, innovation and voices.” I added this website to “my favorites” because I want to remain informed on this issue and up to date on any action taken on by Congress because I don’t want to take for granted a privilege I now have and one that I want to continue to have in the future.

User-Centered Design & Stakeholders

My website will be what Berkeley describes as “user-centered design” in his book Designing for Interaction. The purpose of my website is to fulfill requests and provide answers to my target audience of teachers and students. I want my website to be straightforward, easy-to-use and one that teachers and students will re-visit and will recommend to their peers. Berkley writes, “the people who will be using a product or service know what their needs, goals, and preferences are, and it is up to the designer to find out those and design for them”.  I have had informal conversations with potential users or what Berkeley may refer to as “stakeholders”. I have “picked their brains”, asking them how I could improve the process of requesting school tours, school presentations or additional information from my company. The majority of my stakeholders suggested that it would be wonderful to have information on the company’s website. They want to know whether or not our company offers tours to schools, what are our restrictions are, if our employees are willing to visit schools and educate students about our company, its history and products and who they need to contact at the company to schedule a tour, arrange for a school presentation or obtain educational material on our products. I believe all the questions my stakeholders need answers to could be addressed on my website and the link to my website should be easy to find on my company’s homepage. Berkeley writes, “designers are involved simply to help achieve their (users) goals” and that is exactly the purpose of my website, I am developing this website to help my users accomplish their goal in a painless, easy way.

  Benchmarking Other Divisions

In addition to talking to potential users, I also reached out to my colleagues at my company’s “sister divisions” to benchmark their school outreach programs. I wanted to learn more about how they fulfill requests from students and teachers and most importantly if they have a website that describes their school outreach programs. I learned that not one of the four divisions I spoke with had a website devoted to community/school outreach. One of the business units no longer offers school tours because of a concern for student safety and sharing proprietary information with the public. Representatives from the three other divisions said that they are willing to offer tours to a small group of students but they may only get one or two requests a year and these requests are usually from employees whose child is in the class. Two divisions have established programs within their local school districts and have long-standing relationships with teachers and administrators who personally know the appropriate contacts at the company. Although two of the business units have established programs in place, they do not have information on their homepage to describe these programs. The request usually comes in by phone through the main number at the company and the call is passed from person to person until it reaches the voicemail of the appropriate contact which can take weeks. One person I spoke with said that sometimes the request maybe submitted through a “general request form” on the company’s website but this request form is sent to the company’s information systems department in Illinois although the request is for a “tour of the company headquarters in Connecticut”. It makes no sense but apparently the majority of the information systems department is housed in Illinois. The information system department will then forward the request to a contact in Connecticut and the email will be forwarded a number of times from employee to employee until it lands in the inbox of the appropriate contact. This contact said it often takes months before this request form submitted through the company’s homepage reaches his inbox! Needless to say he never recommends that people submit a request via the company’s website. I told him about my idea to have a request form that would be sent directly to me and another colleague in my department, he thought it was a great idea and one that he would like to implement at his own division.

My division is different than the others I spoke with, we do not have established programs in school districts and we are open to fulfilling requests of teachers and students from all over the state and not just in our local community.  My conversations with potential users as well as my colleagues were extremely helpful as I begin to envision the design of my website. I have a better understanding of what my user wants and my goal is to eliminate the frustration of my user and make their visit to my website as pleasant as possible. I was also happy to hear that my colleagues at other divisions were intrigued by my idea and would like me to share the finished products with them because it maybe something they would also like to do at their business unit. I learned that my website may now have two potential stakeholders’ the users and the people who are serving these users.  

 What I Learned from Talking to Potential Users & My Colleagues……

The potential users to my website are confused and uninformed yet interested and eager to learn more about my company and its products. They are teachers who want to develop a lesson for their students on fuel cells and they are students that are studying new green technologies. They visit my company’s website but they are frustrated by the fact that the website does not have the information they are looking for, they want to know if my company is willing to provide school tours of our manufacturing facilities, or if our employees are willing to visit a classroom and give a presentation or if we have information about our products and technology that we can send to teachers and students. The user is left to his or her own devices which usually involves a “cold call” to the main line of our company which goes directly to the security guard at the front desk who does not know who the appropriate contact is and often sends the request to the executive who may delete the voicemail message immediately or if they are lucky the executive may forward the request to me or one of my colleagues in the communication department. I then will return the call and try my best to fulfill the needs of the teacher or student. The process that is now in place for my key stakeholders is not efficient and can be greatly improved by the creation of my website that will offer teachers and students the information they are looking for in one easy-to-find, easy-to-use website. As Berkeley said “users know best” and as the designer, I am here to serve them. I would like my website to make my users as happy as the girl in the photo below.

I  love watching the YouTube clips from the TED show. Some people admire rock stars and celebrities; I can honestly say that I am always in awe of techies. How do they do it? How do they think of this technology? And how do they create it?  If I could switch brains with any professional it would be a visionary like David Kelly.  I am no fashionista nor am I the world’s best shopper but I was very impressed by the human-centered technology that Kelly’s company created for the Prada store in Manhattan. The magic mirror puts the floor length mirror in my bedroom to shame. Every morning when I leave my apartment, I take one last look at myself in the floor length mirror to make sure that my clothes look ironed , that I match and most importantly that I did not overlook a coffee or toothpaste stain on my clothes. I look forward for a full front view then whip around so that my back is facing the mirror and look over my shoulder to see the reflection of my back in the mirror. A magic mirror like the one at the Prada store in Manhattan would allow me to have a full look at my back without having to crane my neck for an “over the shoulder glance”.  I never thought about how a simple everyday thing like that could be solved by technology. I also loved the fact that you could change the door of the dressing room to solid when you are trying on clothes and then to clear when you have tried the outfit on and would like the opinion of your shopping companion or the store employee. It sure beats peaking your head out of a curtain and yelling for your shopping companion to come over to your dressing room to see you in the outfit. For some reason the Prada video reminded me of the Jetson’s cartoon it seemed so “space age” to me and everyone who watched the Jestons knows that Jane Jetson loved to shop!  She would certainly be a regular at the Prada store in Manhattan. After watching David Kelly’s video demonstration, I began to think about other human centered tasks that could benefit from one of Kelly’s design and my first idea was helping to get people ready for work. I would love to see these designers create a “9 to 5” computer that helps people get ready for work. It washes and blow dries you hair, picks out your outfit, cleans it, irons it and then hands it to you ready to wear. The computer also brews you a pot of coffee and makes and packs your lunch. It would be sheer genius!  If I could have a computer get me ready for work every morning I would be thrilled. If any of the human-centered technology designers want to create a Jetson-esque device like the one I described above, please feel free to contact me for your focus group, I would love to be your guinea pig!