Program Competencies
#3 Relate how the information society affects global social transformation.
Self-Assessment |
Artifacts |
Where did you
create this artifact? The “Book Review” artifact was created during courses ICT 702
Seminar in Information. I created this
artifact to demonstrate for me how the social influence models (Schmitz and Fulk, 1991) enlighten me on a topic I have pondered over
the last few years. Why are social
media website like MySpace and Facebook so popular with the masses? What I Learned,
How did you learn this? One important idea I learned while reading our textbook titled Information
and communication technology in organizations, I learned that the Schmitz and
Fulk model states that the individual user’s social
environment is an important influence in their media choice and use. Media richness the process of simply
choosing ICT media based on the task you need to accomplish cannot be the
sole determining factor in predicting users ICT adoption levels. Social
influence also plays a critical role in how users select which ICT to use
(Bowman, 2005). Why this is
important: From a media richness perspective email
marketing campaigns or mailers may appear to be the best ICT solution for
engaging new customers. With over 500
million user being reported on Facebook, and other social media ICT gaining
strength like LinkedIn and Twitter there is a tremendous business
opportunities to use social media to reach potential new customers and engage
existing customers. Understanding and
using the social influence model can contribute to your analysis of selecting
the appropriate media for use in the 21st century. How can you apply? Although I am not a huge fan of social media ICT I can certainly
understand and accept the business impact, it can have on our industry and
learn to appreciate the user acceptance of this new technology. I can use the social influence model to
help guide branding and customer service initiatives and cross sale product
and services. Instead of trying to
attract online customers to your website, business can bring their product
and services to the social sites where the users are. I will continue my research on this
technology and look for future business opportunities. What challenges
& obstacles did you overcome? One challenge for me personally is that I am not a big fan of social
media even though I joined LinkedIn because old friends and colleagues were
there. I was able to overcome some of my bias when I recently read in Healey
2010 that some organizations are attempting to install their own social media
networks within their private organizations and came to the realization that I
do like Microsoft Sharepoint and I think it has
some ICT possibility to be a successful social media tool in organizations if
the social drive is centered on Project Team communications. I think it can have a significant business
impact providing an ICT tool for collaboration especially in large projects
with team members in remote locations.
Project teams are socially driven to communicate for the success of
the project and having an ICT technology to enable fast, easy, and effect
communication would contribute to its use. REFERENCE Healey, Michael . (September, 2010).
Socially Challenged. InformationWeek.
Retrieved on October 20, 2010, from http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/social_network/227500564 Bowman, H. van den Hoff, B. van den Wijngaert,
L. & van Dijk, J (2005). Information and
communication technology in organizations. London: Sage Publications |
·
BOOK REVIEW: Marketing 2.0
Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing. By
Bernie Borges. |