Week 8 Blog

Social Media

Reading on this Washington school shooter, we have a very tricky situation on our hands. Understandably, school shootings are a very touchy topic that can evoke a lot of emotion. 

High schoolers can be very emotional, so reading the boy became unattached with society based on relationships isn't too surprising, unfortunately. 

As far as the tweets are concerned, I would first want to determine whether or not they held any relevance or insight into why the shooter acted as he did. If it determined that indeed the tweets are deemed relevant then I wouldn't see too much wrong with using them. Another reason I wouldn't see much wrong with using the tweets is the fact that social media is public knowledge already. Yes there are ways to lock an account, but anyone who uses any form of social media should remember that anything you put up runs the chance of being made public. 

But that the same time, tweeting is some interesting stuff. Sometimes you just have to let them be. Obviously, you can't say that whatever someone says on twitter is exactly what they mean, think and feel. Sometimes,  I think you can say it has a pretty good chance of being quite near to what they are thinking, and when dealing with such a violent crisis such as this it is very important to take into consideration. The psychological side of things is something that will likely get further attention is years down the road.

The Washington shooting had many emotions involved. Here is a picture of some of the emotions. 

Emotions 

At the same time, posting social media stuff right away means you are walking a tight rope. It can be very hard to decipher what is truly meant, and what it fake-meant. Yet, in this story, here is evidence that a girl shot in this shooting died, and it was obviously fatal.

Fatal Shooting

In the end, it's a very tricky topic to discuss. Social media can be a very interesting topic to search. At times, it can be very obvious, but at times it can be kids that aren't totally serious. As a result, I think looking at a kid's social media page and posting it is totally okay. If it helps eliminate future killings, that is a success. That's the potential it hold with these fragile kids, which in the end is worth it.  

coMPARE Lab

Information: coMPARE Lab

Sitting in a recliner, watching TV, and being part of a growing team. What do these three things all have in common? They're all part of the coMPARE Lab at the University of South Dakota. 

This lab is truly a unique addition to the school and has made Vermillion the home of media research in the state. 

So what is the coMPARE Lab exactly? Well for starters, it's actually an acronym. It stands for Communication Media Psychology and Related Effects. The lab is a psycho-physiology lab that does many lab reports on the brain and why it remembers certain details within the realm of the media. 

The idea to bring this to the University of South Dakota started a ways back, four years to be exact, by Professor Brandon Nutting. Nutting had worked with two other labs of this nature during his college years at the Ohio State University and Texas Tech. Remarkably, those were just two of the eight schools in the nation that had this media-driven lab. With a vision (and funding), Vermillion, S.D. became the home of the ninth psycho-physiology lab.

Since it is only in its second year of existence, it's still continuing the process of growing each and every day. 

Located in the basement of the Al Neuharth Building, this unique set-up features computers, charts, a TV and of course, a recliner. An example of something you might experience in the coMPARE Lab is sitting on the recliner while watching a TV show. You have equipment connected to you, trying to see how your brain is processing. After, you answer some questions and discuss elements that caught your attention. 

So what's the big deal of all of this?

"It gives us real, hard answers," Nutting said. 

Nutting says the lab is in a good position right now, but they are working hard to partner with advertising agencies.

"Being that we're the leader in media research for the entire state, we're looking to expand in many ways," Nutting said. "We want to build money for the school.

It may be a lab without much tradition, but given the good start, it shouldn't take a whole lot of time for the ball to really start rolling. 

Week 07 Blog

Apple Pay

As the prompt says, Apple released Apple Pay earlier this week. This is an interesting idea, because it saves people the hassle of carrying around cash and credit cards. It's also a potential revolutionary idea because it can save tons of money from credit card fraud.

Credit card fraud is prevalent in today's society and will be as long as credit cards are around.

 Here is a story I read yesterday about a guy getting busted for credit card fraud.

Busted

Google Pay seems like it is coming out at a perfect time in today's world. Google Wallet was a similar attempt to make life easier on people, but it may have been too far ahead of it's time. To live in today's world you almost need to be caught up to speed with technology, and most people now realize that. That is a main reason why Google Pay may indeed catch on. 

Google Wallet Display

Mobile Payments are something that will continue growing. As the world keep growing, so will the way things are paid for. Apple Pay has a lot of potential and the reviews, so far, have been good. I'm on board and I'm interested to see how far it can go. 

Week 6 Blog

Anonymous Apps

Social media will seemingly always continue growing. Around the University of South Dakota and other campuses, the growth has been in anonymity. Yik Yak and Fade have been the biggest reasons towards this. 

Personally, I don't use either app. I actually didn't even know what Yik Yak was until two weeks ago and have still never used it. I do know what it is, and know the problems that arise from it. As for Fade, I'm not really sure what it is. All I know is it somehow lets you share stuff temporarily. The key word being temporarily. 

What's dangerous is stuff that goes online usually is never temporarily. Kids can get in a lot of trouble if they think some of the stuff they throw on these sites will be gone forever. 

Here's an example of the problems Yik Yak can cause. Saying things like this isn't very acceptable.

Problem with Yik Yak

One thing that seems obvious, but apprantly isn't, is don't be stupid on Yik Yak. Using the app can be fun, but making threats with the thought that you won't be found is a mistake you'll surely regret.

Here was a story a kid being arrested for making threats on Yik Yak, 

Don't be dumb

I don't use either of these apps, but knowing what they can potentially cause is still important. I'm  not really a fan of them, because just reading something without knowing who said it doesn't seem very fun to me. In the end, Yik Yak and Fade can be a slippery slope for college students. Having fun with it is fine, but going past the line can get you in trouble, so think before you act.

Week 5 Blog

Breaking through the clutter

It's very obvious that technology basically runs the world, in some sense. It really is more powerful than ever. Companies are making sure they take advantage of this by using all the technology they can— and that includes social media. 

Twitter, Facebook and Vine are all media platforms that I check frequently, and all three seemingly are getting more and more cluttered with ads. Below is an example of an ad on Twitter.

Twitter advertising 

I don't follow Subway, but Subway paid to get their tweet on my timeline. It's almost becoming normal to just realize it's an ad, but at the same time, it's very annoying. I can't honestly say there was a single time I saw an ad on social media and it influenced me to want that product. Rather, it potentially might mean the opposite. Ff I see the same ad popping up too frequently, I'm pretty sure I'd avoid that product more just because I remember it annoying me.

I understand that in the story, Industry executives say this is the advertising of today and the future. But it's hard to see it continuing fluttering up my own pages. 

"The end game is still to sell, of course, but agencies will do anything to get further under the consumer's skin." 

That's the attitude that gets people annoyed. Force feeding us ads just seems like a major turn-off. 

How to set-up Twitter ads

This link shows how easy it is for companies to set up ads on Twitter. So, as you might have guessed, literally any company can set it up. 

All in all, it's frustrating that this is the new era type of advertising. I wish it wasn't, but I'm bracing for it to continue happening.. and growing.

Yotes fall to UNI Panthers

            The 100th Dakota Day hype appeared to be too much for the University of South Dakota football to handle.

            South Dakota came into their homecoming game with high hopes of taking down Northern Iowa for the second year in a row and improve to 3-3 on the year.    Unfortunately, UNI got the best of the Coyotes for the majority of the afternoon, taking down the Coyotes 30-16, dropping the Coyotes to 2-4 (0-2) on the year.

            “They (UNI) are just a good football team. I’m not kidding you,” head coach Joe Glenn said. “I’d be surprised if they don’t go on and have a really good season.”

            One of the headlines heading into the game was the return of quarterback Kevin Earl. Earl had been out since the season-opener against Oregon when he fractured his right thumb.

            “It was awesome to be able to suit up and go out there again,” Earl said. “Especially since it was in front of such a big crowd and since it was such a big game for us. It’s just tough handling a loss right now.”

            Earl ad the offense looked extremely sharp right out of the gates, scoring a touchdown on an 11 play- 76-yard scoring drive.

            “The first drive we overcame penalties and it felt great and we had a lot of confidence at the time,” Earl said. “But after that we were just in bad field position and that’s the way the game kind of went.”

            Like Earl said, it was almost all downhill from there for the Coyotes offense. The Coyotes racked up eight penalties for 75 yards and Earl was sacked seven times.

            “That was the difference,” Glenn said.

            Glenn said the Panthers front seven is as good of a group as they’ve played all year and just overpowered his team.

            “This game was won in the trenches and their front seven was sensational,” Glenn said.

            “Earl finished the game with 260 yards passing and one touchdown. He also threw two interceptions and said he has a lot of room to grown after missing more than a month of the season.

            “I thought I made some nice plays,” Earl said. “I just can’t turn the ball over,”

            The Coyotes are now 2-4, which isn’t where they want to be considering they were 3-3 at this point last year.

            “I don’t worry about being 2-4. I worry about losing to the 10,000 people that were there today,” Glenn said. “It’s so much fun during homecoming and we wanted to win so bad. We had a chance, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

            The Coyotes will look to win their first Missouri Valley game of the year next week when they travel to Missouri to take on Missouri State. The Coyotes beat Missouri State 17-14 last year, which was their first ever win in the conference.

Week 4 Blog

Work Clothes

What you wear to work seems like something that's fairly important. As they say, if you want to feel good, you've got to look good. Dressing for success is something that is very important for most professions.

Notice I said most. In the world of technology and computers, dressing for success is becoming a dying standard. As the article from ragan.com says, casual attire is becoming more and more normal in most professions. But is this that big of a deal? The story notes an interesting point: If performance and formality were directly proportional, everyone would choose success. But what the article tells us is you should not be putting such a big emphasis on how nicely one is dressed. Finding out that the White House now lets people work without a tie (unless meeting with the president) is a fun fact the story brings up.

In the end, ragan brings up good pointers on what you should be doing for your own dress code, but leaves us off with saying that essentially if your workers are getting the job done, the emphasis shouldn't be on what they are wearing. 

I think the advice is very solid. Something that immediately came to my head was this picture.

Craig Sager's suit game is on point.

Sure, Craig Sager probably went against some guidelines for his work attire. But it made him feel good and who was to tell him not to wear these kind of suits? He is one of the best guys at what he does. Feeling good while not overstepping your boundaries within your work can be a fine line, but there still should be flexibilty. 

NBA Dresscode

The NBA is a place that, nearly 10 years ago, decided enough was enough and made a dress code. They wanted to make sure every one of their players represented the league with a good image. It was a good idea then, and is still a good idea today. Seeing a dress code written in words like that puts it into perspective of how important dressing for success is to some people. Now, for someone that just sits behind a computer, this is probably too far. But it's still something good to relate to. 

All in all, dress codes are important. But there shouldn't be a whole lot of complaints about the dwindling importance put on it. As long as someone is effective at what they do and not tracking attention for what they wear, no one should have a problem.