Frag Dolls
How cool are these girl-gamers - the
Frag Dolls.
"Okay, boys. The days of cooties have gone the way of Centipede. Girls are into games now, and we're just as hooked as you are. In fact, girl gamers make up 43% of all gamers, according to the ESA. So, where are all the ladies in the house?
Enter the Frag Dolls, a group of girl gamers out to have a little fun. We're here to represent the ladies in gaming with the taste and talent for beating you at your own games. So, for all you guys who think the only gals in gaming are the leather-clad, pixilated beauties on your screens, think again. We're real, and we've got the skills to teach you a few tricks of our own. So hang around and check out our blogs, or come challenge us online. You just might learn something.
frag /frag/ n. & v. · n. 1 number of kills. 2 a fragmentation grenade. · v. 1 to eliminate other players in multiplayer shooters (fragging).
rag·doll physics {buzzword} /ragdol fiziks/ n. 1 a program allowing videogame characters to react with realistic body and skeletal physics.
frag·doll /fragdol/ n. 1 a female gamer with the skills to dominate in multiplayer shooters. 2 a lady with the sass to use the laws of physics to her incontestable advantage."
Their image is a tad marketed - but good PR for girls and women - Women are gamers too, and they don't have to be geeky.
Communication Rights: Use Them or Lose Them
Free Speech, Democracy and You
Do you care about peace, environment, or social issues? What sources do you depend on in both your personal and community life to inform, connect and empower? And what would happen if those sources disappeared or were taken over by self-serving corporate or government interests?
"The last few months have seen numerous attacks on independent media by the US Federal Government."
Last Thursday, the FBI seized two Indymedia-UK computers. According to the Independent Media Centre, commonly known as Indymedia, the result was the shutdown of twenty independent news websites across Europe and elsewhere.
The seizure came only days before the European Social Forum, Europe's major civil society gathering, in which Indymedia has a significant role. Ironically, Indymedia is also scheduled to participate in the European Forum on Communications Rights, concerning issues of electronic civil liberties and independent media.
"It is unclear to Indymedia how and why a server that is outside the US jurisdiction can be seized by US authorities."*
Power corrupts. In these times of govenment clampdowns on civil rights, and the ongoing struggle between popular and corporate control of the Internet, can we take free speech or even democracy itself for granted?
What can one do? There are many fun, inspiring and important ways you can help big or small. As little as a few minutes a day can help lead to a more communicative, less violent, more sustainable world...
here.
Blogging and Safe Spaces
Halley has an interesting comment in her
post:
"So as a blogger, I'm missing the one thing the blog used to be -- a safe place for me to let loose -- and I figure this is what
Meg is referring to and I agree with her that we can't do that anymore very well."
I am curious as to why she can't do this anymore.
Anyway, the comment struck me, and I really had to think about it for a few minutes. Publishing anything on the internet is never really a private space. Somewhere, at some point, some one will find your website or blog and read it. It just happens. But I am really curious about what Halley means about a safe place. Is a 'safe place' somewhere that you can unload your most personal thoughts and feelings without fear of repercussions (or public ridicule)? Does safe space mean the same as private space? Meg says this:
"This site has never purported to be a journal or a diary, or really anything more than a public place where I chose to share some bits of my life with people who are interested in reading them. But it's all been very controlled, and I've been very aware of my audience -- from grandparents to potential bosses to strangers -- since its inception. And so most of what I think and I do goes unsaid on this site, which for the most part is OK, except that when I look back on prior entries, sometimes I wish I had a better sense of what was really happening between the lines. So this entry is more for me than for you, because this week has been really been something and I need to get that down someplace."
The sense of what is a safe place and space is quite complex. A safe space is about being able to put a part of your personal identity outside of your self and perhaps share it with others. But does it have to be private? Can you have a safe space in a public place? This is a question that feminists have been wrestling with for years.
Can the Internet ever really be a safe space in a public place?
Smart robots for home use: the future is now
By
Jonathan Fowler
Geneva - The use of robots around the home to mow lawns, vacuum floors and manage other chores is set to surge sevenfold by 2007 as more consumers snap up smart machines, the United Nations said.
That boom coincides with record orders for industrial robots, said the UN's annual World Robotics Survey, released on Wednesday.
The report, issued by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, said that 607 000 automated domestic helpers were in use at the end of 2003, two-thirds of them purchased that year.
Most of them - 570 000 - were robot lawnmowers. Sales of vacuum cleaning robots reached 37 000.
By the end of 2007, 4,1-million domestic robots will likely be in use, the study said. Lawnmowers will still make up the majority, but sales of window-washing and pool-cleaning robots are also set to take off, it predicted.
Sales of robot toys, like Sony's canine Aibo, also have risen. The study said there are now about 692 000 "entertainment robots" around the world.
Household robots could soon edge their industrial counterparts, which have dominated the figures since the UN body first began counting in 1990.
Industrial robots have nonetheless continued to recover from the slump recorded in the 2001 study.
"Falling or stable robot prices, increasing labour costs and continuously improving technology are major driving forces which speak for continued massive robot investment in industry," said Jan Karlsson, author of the 414-page study.
In the first half of 2004, business orders for robots were up 18 percent on the same period a year earlier, mostly in Asia and North America.
Japan still remains the most robotised economy, home to around half the current 800 000 industrial robots. After several years in the doldrums, demand there jumped 25 percent in 2003.
But Europe and North America are fast catching up, the study said.
European Union countries were in second place, with 250 000 robots in operation by the end of last year, mostly in Germany, Italy and France. Demand from North American businesses rose 28 percent, with 112 000 robots in service by the end of last year.
The machines are also taking off in richer developing countries, including Brazil, China and Mexico, spurred by plummeting prices.
Taking the global average, a robot sold in 2003 cost a quarter of what a robot with the same performance cost in 1990, the study found.
It said that by 2007, world industrial robot numbers will likely reach at least one million.
The term "robot" covers any machine that operates automatically to perform tasks in a human-like way, often replacing the human workers who did the job previously. In most cases, robots move under their own propulsion and do not need to be controlled by a human operator after they have been programmed.
Most industrial robots are used on assembly lines, chiefly in the auto industry. But increasingly, companies are using them for other tasks, the study said.
There are now 21 000 "service robots" in use, carrying out tasks such as milking cows, handling toxic waste and even assisting in operating theatres. The number is set to reach a total of 75 000 by 2007, the study said.
By the end of the decade, the study said, robots will "not only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard our homes but also assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous to people, fight fire and bombs."
Refining your Internet Search
Your Internet search is as good as your conceptual framework. You need to think outside the box if you want to do decent google searches.
Example: I was given some squash by a local farmer. I like squash, but I don't really know much about the different types. I know the acorn, butternut, zucchini and pumpkin types - but not the one on my kitchen table. No problem, I turn to google, and type the word 'squash'. The results I got did not reflect the kind of
squash I was interested in. Hmmm. Oh yes, squash IS a sport isn't it?
How very interesting. Better results from
squash vegetable, which reveal to me that I am in possession of an "autumn cup"
squash.
A good lesson when doing Internet searches - think outside the little black box in my head. You often need to be creative when doing internet searches, thinking about other key words or ideas that may bring up the information that you want.
Blog Explosion
It seems that people are giving
Blog Explosion a go to get new people to visit their site. I thought I would give it a try. I have had a few new visitors here. I like surfing other people's blogs and reading outside my bloglines. Have a look.
Weblog World: Where Are The Women
New Wiki:
"The topic of "Where are the women" in weblogging, specifically among technology and political weblog circles, pops up again and again--usually on a three month cycle, more or less. Each time someone looks around him, scratches his head, and then writes a post more or less titled, "Where are the women"."
Located
here from
Burningbird.
Blogs as Educational Tool?
Students in one of my classes expressed that they are not loving the course blog.
It was my intent to use the blog as another way to communicate and kvetch about course ideas, issues and themes - a discussion board - so to speak, and also a way to disseminate information both course related and otherwise. I have had considerable problems adding students as members so they can post other than in the comments. I have to most trouble with hotmail members - either people don't get the invite or it doesn't work. A plot by Microsoft?
Some of my students mentioned that they much prefer WebCT to the blog, though I am not sure why yet. I will ask them to take a survey at the end of the course on the blog at the end of the term. Students in past years haven't really liked WebCT either, and I found it tiresome to use as well. Not very user friendly.
Perhaps students just don't like having a technological component in the classroom? I have had class list-servs before, and that was well received. Good discussion. So what is it about the Blog that is different. Is it still too new, with various bugs? I am expecting something from Blogs that it just cannot give in an educational setting?
thoughts?
Children and the Family Internet
Located
Here. Snip:
The negative implications of children’s use of the Internet, particularly their loss of innocence through access to pornography, is a topic frequently addressed in public discussions and debate. These debates often take on a technologically determinist point of view and assume that technology directly influences children, usually in a harmful fashion. But what is really happening in the Australian family home? Are parents fearful of these risks, and if so what are they doing about it? A recent exploration of the everyday Internet lives of Australian families indicates that families manage these perceived risks in a variety of ways and are not overly troubled about this issue. Findings from the research project indicate that Australian parents are more concerned about some children’s excessive use of the Internet than about pornography. They construct the Internet as interfering with time available to carry out homework, chores, getting adequate sleep or participating in outdoor (fresh air) activities. This disparity, between public discourse regarding the protection of children in the online environment and the actual significance of this issue in the everyday lives of Australian families, reflects the domestic dynamics within the "moral economy of the household" (Silverstone et al. 15) whereby family relationships and household practices inform the manner in which technology is consumed within any given household.
The Science and Development Network
The Science and Development
Network is delighted to announce that the new edition of the Africa Newsletter, focusing on science and gender issues, is now available. Coinciding with the news that Kenyan environmental activist and politician (and former scientist) Wangari Maathai has won the Nobel Prize for Peace, the October newsletter includes profiles of women scientists and women science journalists as well as reporting on some innovative science communication projects. Go
here to download the PDF or email africa@scidev.net to receive a print copy.
New Papers
*Strategies of Inclusion: Gender and the Information Society.
Final Report (Public Version) W.Faulkner, K.Sørensen, H Gansmø, E. Rommes, L.Pitt, V. Lagesen Berg, C.McKeogh P. Preston R.Williams, J.Stewart.
This document summaries the main findings of the SIGIS research on strategies to include women in the "Information Society". It includes a 30 page summary of the main findings for a general professional audience, and seven policy and practitioner briefings with guidelines for action.
*Center for the Digital Future Identifies the 10 Major Trends Emerging in the Internet's First Decade of Public Use
"Ten Years, Ten Trends" Highlight the
Major Findings in Year Four of the Digital Future Project’s Study of the Impact of the Internet on Americans (see the September 23, 2004
Press Release).
*Call for Short Articles for
Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology
Editor: Eileen M. Trauth, Ph.D.
School of Information Sciences and Technology
The Pennsylvania State University
As information technology (IT) has spread throughout all aspects of personal and work life, so too, has grown an interest in understanding more about those who use and develop IT, as well as those who are affected by it. This, in turn, has lead to an increasing interest in the demographics of IT developers and consumers. One demographic category of considerable research interest is gender. Consequently, a diffuse body of research related to the role of gender in human interactions with
information technology has emerged in recent years. This body of research spans a number of disciplines including information science, information systems, computer science, education, women's studies, gender studies, labor studies, human resource management, and technology and society. The purpose of this research is to inform teachers, parents, educators, managers, policy makers and other researchers about such issues as the differences between women's and men's use of information technology and the under representation of women as IT professionals.
In an effort to bring together this diffuse body of research so that it can better inform subsequent research and practice, an Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology is being produced. The objective is to develop an international compilation of research about the role of gender in human interaction with IT and the IT profession. It will be most helpful as it provides comprehensive coverage and definitions of the most important issues, concepts, trends and research devoted to the topic of gender and IT. This important new publication will be distributed worldwide among academic and professional institutions and will be instrumental in providing researchers, scholars, students and professionals access to the latest knowledge related to research on women and men with respect to information technology. Contributions to this important publication will be made by scholars throughout the world with notable research portfolios and expertise.
Coverage: The Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology will provide an international compilation of research on the topic of gender and information technology from a broad range of perspectives. Contributions by leading experts as well as emerging investigators are welcome. This volume will feature short articles (3,000-3,500 words) that provide an overview of research being carried out around the world related to gender and IT. Chapter submissions will be peer reviewed. We welcome both empirical and conceptual chapters.
Invited Submissions: Individuals interested in submitting short articles (3,000-3,500 words) on a topic related to gender and information technology should submit an email proposal to GenderITEncyclopedia@ist.psu.edu. Upon acceptance of your proposal, you will have two months to prepare your article and 7-10 related terms and their appropriate definitions. Guidelines for preparing your short piece and terms and definitions as well as a sample article and terms and definitions can be found on the main menu of this
project.
Please forward your email proposal including your name, affiliation and a short description of your topic to Eileen Trauth, editor at GenderITEncyclopedia AT ist DOT psu DOT edu. Upon notification of the acceptance of your proposal you will be asked to write a 3000-3500 word article in two months. This book is scheduled for publishing by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of Idea Group Inc.) in 2006.
Technology's gender balancing act
By
Jo Twist
Technology has come a long way since the washing machine, but somewhere along the line it lost relevance to women. Now gadget makers are striving to win back the female market.
Women's spending power is growing faster than men's, making the female of the species the number one target for technology companies which want to sell more gadgets.
The trend for tailoring tech to the lucrative female market found its way into the spate of recent "fashion weeks" in London, Paris and New York.
Designer Roland Mouret, working with Intel, unveiled interchangeable laptop "skins" (adding a funky touch to otherwise dull notebooks) and large LCD monitors that doubled up as handbags.
Nokia, meanwhile, has just released the latest of its "fashion phones". The 7260 is inspired by the "glamour of the roaring 20s" and includes a "clothing and shoe size converter for the true fashionista". Thank goodness for that.
Elsewhere, one can pick up lipstick memory sticks, mini iPods in pastel hues, mobiles with mirrors in them, and slim cameras, all intended to pull at the purse strings of women.
But there is a fine line between making technologies appeal to wider audiences and patronising that audience with devices that look pretty but do not do much.
'Canaries in the mine'
Genevieve Bell, anthropologist in residence for Intel, thinks it's high time technology companies thought more explicitly about those who do not fit the young, male, middle class stereotype.
And it's the growing buying power and desires of women that are changing how gadgets are being designed as well as marketed.
Women, she muses, are like the "canary birds of the technological mineshaft". If it doesn't work for them, it'll probably fail in the mass market.
"I think there is this notion that the kind of population of people using technology is broader than ever before," she says.
"They [women] are bringing natural differences, desires, form factors."
Clearly women are not just interested in pretty, shiny objects. But more demanding women entering the technology market have highlighted the crucial role of design.
"We are starting to think about the people who use the technology far more explicitly. We are thinking about users beyond western nations and a wider notion of universal acceptability," says Dr Bell.
But the technology industry is still trying to work out how to wrap diverse desires into an appealing package, and how to accommodate different perceptions about what an object should do.
Blog on
Perhaps the technology does not need to be different, just the language that explains and sells it. Women's magazines, for instance, don't tend to run gadget reviews. Many women feel alienated by technology magazines because of the marketing and imagery used.
Some have turned to weblogs, edited by women, for a more straightforward look at the latest shiny things.
Mia Kim, editor of Popgadget, welcomes the recognition that technology companies are giving to women, but is unhappy about what they think women want.
"Their solution is to do things like add mirrors to cell phones, make things pink, instead of really dealing with the issue of not marketing to women and not having media or retail outlets that are women friendly."
Ultimately, women are probably the harder sell, she thinks. They want to know how something works before they buy it.
"It is not enough to just say it's the fastest, it's the biggest. I think women want more substance than that. They're thinking, 'okay, it's fast, I get it, but what does it actually do?'."
Katie Lee, editor of another blog, Shiny Shiny, sees a more complicated picture, because it's "hard to generalise about women".
"Yes we do want nice things, but there is also a nice thing about having gadgets that are simple. I think they understand it does not have to have all the bells and whistles to appeal."
Which is perhaps why unassuming gadgets, like Apple's iPod, take on such iconic status.
By women, for people
Nowhere is the legacy of technology designed by men for men more apparent than in cars, where it's been going on for 100 years.
Lena Ekelund, engineer and leader of the all-women team behind the YCC Volvo, Your Concept Car, says the technology industry needs to look beyond preconceptions.
"They are stereotyping in a way that is not necessarily accurate. They should be focusing on making user-friendly products, because that is what we did with the car. We had a look at what functionality would improve your life."
The YCC was not designed specifically for women, she stresses, but for "people".
The fact that it looks so different and has oodles of storage space for bags, mobiles, as well as removable, customisable seat covers has nothing to do with the fact it was designed by an all-woman team.
"The way we approached it showed there is absolutely no need to gender-tailor products," says Ms Ekelund.
Women and men both wanted high performance.
One of the lessons learned was that things are often made too hi-tech for customers. Ultimately, there is room for all sorts of markets - including niche markets which cater for extreme nerds - male and female.
"It is perhaps not a matter of the technology itself," says Dr Bell, "It is what you imagine it would be good for doing - the value proposition."
The laptop skins designed for Intel, for example, stretch beyond gender to personification, says Dr Bell.
Mia Kim sketches some basic lessons that technology firms would do well to abide by.
"Ask women what they want, design the products that appeal to women and then make the effort to get the word to women through channels that are friendly to women - most technology publications definitely are not."
Sick in bed with my Laptop
The beauty of wireless computing in the home. I have had my hot bath, vitamin C, my hot tea, my hot chicken broth, and I still feel like crapola. So, I am in bed trying to get better with my laptop and really bad Sat night television.
This includes watching "2001: A Space Odyssey". It is a hard movie to watch really, and apparently a really subjective experience. "Dave...My mind is going...I can feel it..."
Quote from Stanely Kubrick
"I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophical content....I intended the film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does...You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film...." -Stanley Kubrick, 1968"
I don't know if it is the cold medicine, but it's not penetrating my subconscious right now.
Here is an interesting
reflection of it (please insert 'sic' after all the sexist language).
"In the transitional sequence from bone to spaceship to pen, one is forced to acknowledge the importance that Stanley Kubrick places on the relationship between evolution and the creating of tools. The tools created by man are splintered into two different types, tools of destruction and tools of preservation. In the beginning tools were used solely as a means of destruction. The first stage of human evolution began when animals learned how to cooperate within a group structure or extended family. These group structures began to compete with one another for resources. The competition led to adaptation, survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest led the development of tools, tools of death, power and control. It is a combination of imagination and a lust for power and sex that spurred pre-man into the men we are now. The traits of the strongest group structure/extended family were passed on from generation to generation strengthening with each new birth. These group structures overpowered all other existing group structures pushing them into extinction. Tools created by a more evolved society will be built as a means to lengthen our lives and take us beyond ourselves, into a world exploration, hence self discovery. Tools may even be created that let man escape death. Man is the universe looking at itself in wonder. The tools of exploration can only lead man so far. What lay’s beyond is the unknowable, i.e. is there a god, what is on the other side of the universe, assuming the universe has a boundary, what is our purpose, etc. The metaphor of man staring at the black monolith represents just that. In 2001 man is separated by technology and becoming emotionally dead."
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
From
Trish.
The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman.
You can choose to ignore this, but if you are ever put in the position where it could effect you or a member of your family you will be sorry you did not act on such a simple task.
It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).
This doesn't cost you a thing.
Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.
Here's the
website! Pass it along to people you know.
Virtual AoIR 05 - Call for Volunteers
I have decided to organize volunteers in an attempt to have some web-streaming or something virtual at the next
AoIR conference in Chicago. If you have been following the discussion on the list-serv, then you already know this.
So, if you are interested in discussing the possibilities of this, and perhaps helping (at this point, ideas are good too), then please let me know!! Comment here or email me - netwoman at gmail dot com.
Thanks!
Women's Health Online
The Canadian Women’s Health Network (CWHN) announces several new and improved tools to advance networking and information sharing for women’s health.
Canadian Women’s Health Discussion List:
CDN-WOMEN is a new moderated list created to join together and strengthen links among organizations, individuals and groups across Canada involved in women’s health. It will serve as a forum of discussion and debate on current and timely issues affecting women and girls. It is also a place to share information and resources, events, calls for action, and research findings (both biomedical and social research).
Members will be able to post announcements, discuss regulatory issues, ask and answer questions, express opinions, share ideas, post up-coming conferences, events and employment opportunities. As well, the discussion list will provide an opportunity for input on new and emerging issues.
To join:
E-mail cdn-women-admin AT list DOT web DOT net asking to subscribe to listserv, leaving the subject line blank.
CDN-WOMEN does not accept advertisements, product announcements or self-promotional posts from either individuals or organizations working in the pharmaceutical and health products fields.
Women’s Health Database
You can now search our bilingual database of women’s health resources via our website homepage - free of charge! Our database includes over 5800 resources that cover a wide range of topics on women's health and women’s lives, chosen for health consumers, health professionals, researchers, students and activists alike.
When available, you can access full-text online documents, reviews of featured resources, and/or details of where the resources can be obtained (electronic and hard copy). The database also includes over 2400 organizations involved in women’s health, both in Canada and internationally.
We also encourage our members and web site visitors to suggest resources and organizations to include in our growing database.
Women’s Health Thesaurus
A companion to the database is the bilingual women’s health thesaurus, the only one of it’s kind in Canada. A list of over 4000 key words and terms assists the user in obtaining quick and easy access to topics related to women's health and women’s lives.
Both the database and the thesaurus take a broad look at the determinants of women’s health and wellness. Included are resources on those social issues such as poverty and domestic violence that have a direct relationship on a woman’s well-being.
The discussion list, database and thesaurus are among the many tools that the CWHN has developed to further the distribution of information on women’s health. Our website, www.cwhn.ca is Canada’s most popular bilingual women’s health website, and our electronic bulletin, Brigit’s Notes reaches over 3600 subscribers monthly, including key media in Canada and the United States.
We invite health consumers, health professionals, researchers, students, and activists---anyone interested in women’s health -- to visit our website and to send their contributions
here.
Need a New Job? Check Out a Blog
By EILENE ZIMMERMAN -
NY Times - Oct 3, 2004.
GARY FELDMAN was vice president of strategic planning at 141 Worldwide, a Manhattan marketing and advertising agency, when he received an e-mail message last spring from HotJobs.com listing opportunities that might be of interest to him. Although he rarely gave such notices a second glance, he said, a position as director in the New York office of the marketing research and consulting firm Cheskin caught his eye. He followed a link to the company's Web log, or blog, and read the job description.
"It wasn't typical, it was cool," Mr. Feldman said. "It sounded like the person who wrote it really knew what the job was and understood the business. It was written by someone you would want to talk to."
The blog entries of others at Cheskin intrigued him. "I got the sense this was a company where the employees really enjoyed their work," said Mr. Feldman, who was hired in June. "If I had not read the blog I doubt I would have applied."
Five years ago, few people had heard of blogs — online journals that are commonly used to chronicle the lives and opinions of their authors. Now, more than two million Americans are blogging, according to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project — and blogging is spreading in the job market, said hiring managers and experts who study blogging.
There is no conclusive data on the spread of blogs to the job market, largely because they are difficult to track, said Michael Gartenberg, a vice president and research director at JupiterResearch in New York who covers blogs. But based on anecdotal information, he said, people are using blogs on both sides of the job search process.
"It's a trend on the rise right now," Mr. Gartenberg said, "especially for employers, who get a much better sense of a person this way. Résumés and interviews are a very scripted process; read someone's Web log and you get a good sense of that person's thinking and perspectives."
Alexander C.
Halavais, a professor in the School of Informatics at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies blogs, also expects blogs to play a larger role in the job market. "Right now," Professor Halavais said, "recruiting this way is invisible, it's not institutional yet. But I would be surprised if, fairly soon, we didn't see blogs become a much bigger part of job searching and recruiting,"
Job seekers use blogs to establish a strong online presence, display their skills and advertise their availability. For many just out of college, the blog is an essential networking tool because it is common for bloggers to link back and forth to others with recent posts. Corporate recruiters, in turn, use blogs to draw in qualified candidates, and they search for potential hires by reading bloggers who write about topics relevant to a particular industry.
A driving factor behind job market blogging is the search engine Google, said Elizabeth
Lawley, associate professor of information technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "If you are thinking of interviewing someone, it's almost standard now to Google them online and see what you find," Ms. Lawley said. "If that person has a blog, it's usually the first thing that comes up."
Official corporate blogs are still rare, said John
Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, largely because "corporate marketing and branding is often an exercise in hypercontrol of a message, and that doesn't work well in a blogging context."
Some businesses do allow their employees to blog individually, however, provided they make it clear that they are operating independently of the company.
About 50 of 600 employees blog at ThoughtWorks, a Chicago-based company that builds business software systems, and any industry-related topic — other than the core intellectual property of clients — is fair game. Its employee blogs have attracted a dedicated readership — and some job applicants. "It's a little like a prescreening," said Roy Singham, the company's chief executive. "We're looking for needles in haystacks, and the blog is like a massive magnet."
Carl Ververs became one of those needles when a friend suggested that he look at the ThoughtWorks Web site, and Mr. Ververs came upon the blog of the company's chief scientist, Martin Fowler. "I started reading Martin's blog and saw a posting where he admitted he didn't know what was going on with something related to database programming," Mr. Ververs said. "He wrote that he was always looking to better himself and learn new things and so questioned his previous assumptions. I thought, `If this is the chief scientist's attitude, I want to work there.' Reading his blog was a critical turning point for me." Mr. Ververs was hired as a software integration architect in July.
At Microsoft, several hundred employees blog using a portal hosted by Microsoft Communities. The company has no official blog or blogging policy, but the unofficial practice has been a boon to the company's recruiters.
"I have great candidates in process that have resulted from blogging," wrote Heather Hamilton, a senior marketing recruiter at the company, who posted her note in May on Heather's Marketing at Microsoft Blog. "Personally I think blogging is going to change the way companies recruit."
Gretchen Ledgard, a recruiter for technical jobs at Microsoft and the creator, with Zoe Goldring, of the Technical Careers @ Microsoft blog, called job candidates' entries in her blog "living résumés." Ms. Ledgard said she also kept a file of interesting bloggers and read them regularly, expecting that some will become job candidates.
For unemployed job seekers, there is little risk in announcing a return to the job market through a blog. But for those currently working but searching for a new job, there are risks. "The rule of thumb is, if you don't want anyone at the company to know you're looking, don't post it on your blog," Professor Halavais said. "It's one of the biggest mistakes employed job seekers make."
Job seekers who prefer to look at others' postings can find blogs relevant to them using search engines, or Web sites like Bloglines.com.
Another approach is to simply blog intelligently about your work or industry, Professor Halavais said. "Those looking to hire will notice you through your blog as a passive candidate, and that's often a much better way to find a job."
That is the approach taken by Hugh MacLeod, creative director at Alcazar, an advertising agency in Newcastle, England. Mr. MacLeod's blog, gapingvoid.com, contains his cartoon work and blogs about the advertising industry and other topics.
"The blog has started lots of conversations about jobs," Mr. MacLeod said. "It's like flypaper, and now I'm in the midst of one of these conversations with a large advertising firm in Manhattan. They saw my site and blog and contacted me."
He added: "That's the advantage of blogging — if you do it well and have interesting things to say, people pay attention."
Female Mailboxes
From
Lisbeth..."women are better at organising their mail (deleting it in their inbox) and are more happy about using email as a form of communication than their male counterparts which would rather use the phone (59%)." Article found
here.
"The survey was made by Xerox and actually builds on interviews with 508 managers. From the scientific point of validity, I wonder how many of these are actually women?
The most interesting thing about the Politiken article is that they have a little onsite survey asking people how many mails they have in their inbox. Today, the stats look like this (I hope Politiken is not going to sue me for quoting this):
0 12%
1 - 50 36%
51 - 100 11%
101 - 250 10%
251 - 500 9%
501 - 1.000 7%
More than 1.001 14%
(3170 people had done the poll at the time of writing)
I find the fact that 14% have more than 1001 mails in their inbox comforting.
I've started to feel like a very disorganised woman - I read all my mails but I havent found the time to sort them since august, so I've currently reached a peek of 1626 mails in the inbox. How many mails do you have in yours? Do you feel disorganised? "
I have to organize my Inbox, it makes me crazy if it isn't. Is this gendered?
Hmmm. I only have 58 in my Inbox - but I do have 24,450 in my sent file!! Not including the sent emails, I have 6922 emails in my email program right now, filed under assorted headings. yikes!
Self-Ethnography: Physical and Virtual Spaces
Anti-Mega is blogging through his moblie phone where he is physically located at
all times. Recently he was on a boat to the Helsinki Zoo
Cool!. A very interesting concept, but I am not sure I want people to know where I am at all time. Though it's not hard to guess where I am really. Mapping my daily travels would be revealing. I don't lead a super-star lifestyle. Though I am thinking that my ex-stalker-husband would find this very useful (like he needs it).
This is what he has to say about the experience and releasing his data:
"A bigger question is why publish this information in public. I must admit I'm not overly happy with giving everyone access to this data, but then again, this kind of service is the near-future that designers like myself have been preaching for years. It will cause privacy problems, it will cause social embarassment, it may change the way I live. Unless I try it myself, I will never know what unexpected consequences publishing this information will have. Self-ethnography is not scientifically valid, but I think it's one of the best ways of empathising with the problems new technology creates. If I won't use it, I shouldn't expect you to either."
From
Anne.
Live-in lab
Relative to my Dissertation work in some respect:
PlaceLab looks more like an ordinary condo than a research center. But technologists from MIT and TIAX have stuffed it with sensors, cameras, and speakers in an effort to monitor people's behavior in the home.
By
Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | October 4, 2004
CAMBRIDGE -- Greater Boston's newest cutting-edge research lab boasts no test tubes, lasers, or printed circuit boards -- at least none in plain view. It looks like what it is: a clean, modern, and sparsely furnished 950-square-foot condominium near Central Square.
But it's also a living research lab, called PlaceLab, owned and operated by the independent research company TIAX LLC. And over the next three years it will be conducting dozens of experimental studies, co-directed by TIAX and House_n, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research group, into how people behave at home. The collaboration was formally launched at a "Changing Homes" conference here last week, though PlaceLab quietly opened its doors in July.
Crammed behind the cabinets and walls are hundreds of light, temperature, humidity, water-flow, and other sensors linked by three or four miles of cable. Also invisible are banks of computers, cameras, and microphones that have recorded nearly a terabyte of data on everything from the cooking to the toilet flushing to the window-opening habits of volunteers who live in the condo for set periods and agree to have their activities monitored.
"It is the most highly instrumented living environment ever built," said Kent Larson, a principal research scientist at MIT's Department of Architecture and director of the House_n research group. (The group's name means "house to the nth degree," referring to the unlimited possibilities of home technologies.) "The real challenge is to figure out what to do with all the data, so we do something useful for people."
The goal of the shared research lab is to explore technologies with the potential to improve health, diet, disease management, indoor air quality, energy conservation, user interfaces, and injury prevention. MIT, which designed the facility and installed its sensor infrastructure, would like to publish research on health and energy technologies for the home. TIAX, which invested $700,000 to buy, equip, and maintain the condo, would like to commercialize the technology in partnership with other companies or outside parties that can sponsor research.
"We feel very strongly that the American home is at an inflection point," said Kenan Sahin, founder and president of TIAX (an acronym for "technology and innovation applications to the power of X"), a Cambridge company that acquired the former Arthur D. Little technology labs in 2002. "It's going to change dramatically."
Among the trends poised to transform home technologies are the aging of the baby boomers, the move toward home healthcare, the proliferation of computer, electronic, and entertainment devices, and the limits on the number of stand-alone technologies people will embrace. Together, these trends create a fertile ground for new technology development and experimentation, PlaceLab's directors believe. And unlike "homes of the future," such as the ultrawired Microsoft Home in Redmond, Wash., the aim of PlaceLab is less to showcase futuristic devices than to bring technology to bear on activities of daily life.
PlaceLab's first volunteers moved in for two short periods over the summer as researchers did their initial tests of the sensors and other technologies for automatic recognition of home activities. Going forward, the lab plans to host singles, couples, and families of different ages for a range of academic, industry, or government research projects. Among technologies that might be tested are the microzoning of temperature for each resident of a home, light-emitting diodes that flash when the weather outside gets warm enough to open windows, and warnings that sound when older residents get down to the bottom of a staircase, where falls are most common.
Accident prevention is just one of the health-related fields that is expected to generate the most interest. Soaring healthcare costs already have given rise to a burgeoning industry of home-based and mobile products that Forrester Research, the Cambridge technology research firm, has dubbed "healthcare unbound." Companies are building pacemakers with intelligence and transmitting technologies to relay data that can be read by healthcare professionals remotely, or devices that collect and relay information from glucose meters, blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, and electronic scales in the home. Such activities will generate worldwide revenues of $460 million this year, a Forrester estimate says. The firm projects the industry to grow to $5.7 billion by 2010 and to $63.3 billion by 2020.
Research operations like PlaceLab could play a vital role in that growth, said Elizabeth W. Boehm, senior analyst for healthcare and life sciences at Forrester. "It's an important environment for figuring out which technologies will work," Boehm said. "One of the things that's unknown, and that's valuable to the healthcare industry, is whether you can change people's behavior and get them to do preventive care and stay with routines of taking meds, exercising, or eating healthy foods."
One potential stumbling block is privacy. PlaceLab has gone to great length to assure volunteers that their identities will be kept confidential. Only a small group of researchers working on specific studies will be permitted to visit, and most of the data will be crunched remotely at MIT. Volunteers are informed of the sensor locations and have the option of blocking sensors or deleting data at their discretion.
Keeping medical data out of the hands of employers or insurance companies, who could use it to discriminate against individuals with health risks, is a key issue in healthcare research, Boehm said. "For any of the technologies that come out of this to have credibility," she said, "they're going to have to work hard to show they have privacy protection."
Cyber Security and the Weakest Link
The Visionaries in Information Technology Forum is an annual, four-part breakfast series created to help elevate the prominence and recognition of Maryland as a critical hub of information and emerging technologies.
The forum is free and includes a complimentary breakfast
If you have not registered yet, sign up today! Over 300 registered attendees to date!
Please share this information with your colleagues!
"Cyber Security and the Weakest Link"
Featuring:
Philip Reitinger
Senior Security Strategist
Microsoft Corporation
Tuesday, October 19th, 2004
7:30 - 9:30 a.m.
Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel
For more information and to register
online: www.umbc.edu/visionaries
Who should attend
This forum was developed for individuals interested in the future of IT and Maryland's role in the IT economy. The forum has drawn over thousands of technologically savvy, business-minded attendees. Join industry visionaries, tech professionals from throughout the region and members of the UMBC community to share ideas on the future of IT and its critical role in shaping the modern business environment.
Lauren Kean
lauren AT umbc DOT edu
CreativeCommons.ca
As part of an international effort to facilitate the availability of open-source licences, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) is translating the popular Creative Commons (cc) licence for use under Canadian law. Once complete, the Canadian Creative Commons (cc-ca) licence will enable Canadian digital creators to independently construct and attach copyright licences to their works. Read: No lawyers required! The cc licence has been embraced by creators world-wide and can currently be found in use on over 3,000,000 digital artworks ranging from text to sound to computer graphics as well as the websites through which they are promoted. Infor
here.
An Apple a Day...
Many of my
colleagues have
Apple products. Notebooks, Desktops, IPods and so forth. If you talk to any Mac lover, you will always have a conversation about why Apple is great. They will spend considerable time trying to convince you that you should leave the dark side of Microsoft and be enlightened.
Considering the numerous conversations I have had with the "Cult of Mac Lovers", I have been looking into IMac's and what they are all about. My son and I have spent a lot of time "geeking out" both online and at computer stores (and drooling over the Power Mac
G5). We are having a blast. Granted I was a geek before, but more so now. I am learning Mac-Speak.
Ok, we are convinced, impressed and excited too. The Kennedy household will be making the move the IMac (for me) and EMac (for son) in the next few months. IPod to follow (once I get a sixth job to support this geeky hobby). The PC is four years old and needs to be passed onto a family member.
Comments and rants are welcome.
