Technology

As I was searching for a communications technology that will affect the way technology is used in professional communication I found one in an unusual source. I was watching The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon where they did a segment on inventions that children around the country had made. One of these inventions was made by a 17 year old boy named Daniil and he titled it “Live Time Closed Captioning system.” This is a system that is designed to help people who are hearing impaired. The device is attached to a person’s glasses to help the hearing impaired participate in ongoing conversations. A microphone, which could easily be worn on the person’s clothing, records the audio of the conversation and runs that audio through word recognition software to display the words as subtitles that can be read.

This is the YouTube video entitled "GE Fallonventions: Live Time Closed Captioning System" where I first saw this technology presented.

This invention and technology was designed specifically to help those with hearing impediments but I believe that there are more applications for such a technology. One of which is to serve as a translator. I think that this would be slightly more difficult to program because of the wide variety of languages worldwide. The idea though, is similar. The microphone would recognize the words being spoken and once they had been recognized they would be fed through a translation software and displayed in the desired language as subtitles on the glasses. This could have large effects on the professional community because there is an ever increasing amount of business being conducted internationally and this technology would allow the facilitation of communication between business individuals who did not speak the same language without being inhibited by the long, difficult, and often costly process of acquiring new language skills in a foreign language. 

This technology has a high resemblance to other wearable technologies that have been presented. The most famous of these is the Google Glass. Google presented the idea of this wearable, glasses technology in 2012 with the first of these units being sold almost a full year later in 2013. There were many concerns from the public about this technology being used to invade personal privacy and record conversations, meetings, and events without permission. The Google Glasses were/are also quite expensive which made it so that not many people had access to them.

I believe that the reason why the live closed captioning system will be more successful and have a greater impact than the other smart glass technologies have been is that it is more simple. This technology has a specific purpose and it accomplishes that purpose alone. The concerns about being filmed or recorded won't be an issue since there is no apparent camera or memory storage system. The fact that these additional elements aren't included in the technology also means that it will be less expensive and that more people will have access to it. This means that as the technology is adapted and applied in new ways it will be more useful in the professional world and an excellent tool that will shape the way that people are able to communicate. Eliminating the disadvantages of a hearing impairment and removing the language barrier are ways that more people will become competent and confident communicators thanks to this technology.
Thanks for reading!
Scott

Sources:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDz9-MUxrgA 
2. http://glassalmanac.com/history-google-glass/

Social Media Case

            I recently became aware of something that happened a few years ago. To briefly summarize the situation I am describing, a waitress was fired from an Applebee’s restaurant in Missouri after posting a picture of a receipt from one of her customers on the internet. The customer was a pastor who ate at Applebee’s with seven of her friends and noticed on her receipt that a tip of 18% was suggested. This customer wrote “I give God 10%, why would YOU get 18?” and didn’t give any tip. It is an interesting situation. Officially, the waitress was fired because she violated the privacy rights of the Applebee’s customer by posting a picture of her receipt and the personal information thereon to the internet.

            I was out of the country when this incident occurred and I was not connected to the internet during my time abroad so I heard nothing about what happened. Now that I am researching it; however, I am noticing that it was quite the Internet sensation. People ran to the defense of both the customer and the waitress who had been fired. Applebee’s made an official post to their Facebook page to inform their customers of the reasons for the actions taken. In this post it was stated that a policy of the company had been broken that regarded the photographing and posting of said photographs without the permission of Applebee’s was prohibited. 

            Michael Wolf, a contributing writer at Forbes, wrote an article regarding his opinion of what happened entitled “Why Applebee’s Was Right.” This article was written with a very obvious touch of humor saying that waiters and waitresses often talk about and enjoy the comments made by customers because they share the common experience of being “stiffed” and they learn to take a joke in that profession. Wolf goes on to say that the waitress crossed the line from posting an innocent joke to violating the rights of the customer when the customer’s signature was included in the picture. According to Wolf, a signature is a private part of a person’s identity and shouldn’t be posted on the Internet. 

            Personally, I have a hard time deciding how I believe this situation should have been handled. As I was reading this case and the reactions of people on social media about what happened, I was struck by the comments of many people who had the opinion that Applebee’s had fired Chelsea Welch because they valued customers more than they valued workers. I understand that a business has the priority of making a profit and that in a food service industry a returning customer is the best way to make those profits. That being said, without servers to care for them, people won’t come to restaurants at all, no matter how well their personal information is kept secret, safe, and private. I believe that Applebee’s had every right to fire their employee after this incident but I also believe that it was a severe penalty for the circumstances. 

            Having worked in the food service industry myself I am somewhat familiar with what Chelsea Wright might have experienced. Training for jobs in this industry is usually not very extensive and almost never is it completely inclusive of all the privacies of the company. For the most part, when someone is being trained to work in a food serving position, the priority of the training process is focused on familiarizing the employee with the practices and duties that he/she will be using every day and how to make those as effective and lucrative as possible. I think that Chelsea Wright was probably told about the policy regarding posting pictures of the Applebee’s customers but that she had never been told that this policy also included the receipts of these customers.

            In my opinion, there were very few “winners” in this situation. I think that this encounter on social media and the Internet left all three parties involved in a situation where they would rather not be. The customer, Alois Bell, is now seen as the pastor who used “the God card” to get out of giving a tip to a waitress who had just served her and her seven friends and subsequently got that waitress fired. Applebee’s posted an official, professional, and politically correct reason for its action that was totally validated by the company’s policies and people looked at it like it had fired a customer on whim and a technicality. Chelsea Wright started an internet movement and, at one point, had a Facebook group of over 4,000 members called "HIRE BACK Chelsea" trying to get her rehired at Applebee’s but she didn’t get hired back and stayed unemployed. She also now has a very prominent mark on her internet presence that says she is an employee who violates company policy and leaks customer information. In a world where companies are more often than not vetting their potential hires on the Internet, this might cause her problems in the future. I learned from the experience of these three groups that social media are very intricate and sensitive and that we all must be very careful with how we are represented on these sites.

            It seems like trying to decide who was right and who was wrong in a situation that happened years ago is an exercise in futility. In my opinion, I think that Alois Bell made a statement in poor taste that was blown out of proportion on a very large scale by the careless action of waitress. It is unfortunate for all parties involved that it grew to have such widespread attention, but that seems to be the nature of the Internet.

            I hope that I, and anyone who reads this, can learn to understand the power that the Internet has to connect people in good ways and in bad ways. It is important that we all learn to use the Internet properly and appropriately. I also think that it is important for organizations to learn this lesson in order to properly educate their employees of proper behaviors and the possible disciplinary and legal consequences of inappropriate internet activities.  
Thanks for reading! 
Scott Call

Sources:

1.     http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelwolf/2013/02/02/why-applebees-was-right/

2.    https://www.facebook.com/applebees/posts/10151390415294334

3.    http://gawker.com/5980816/applebees-responds-to-fired-server-scandal-claims-waitress-disregarded-a-company-policy-that-gets-disregarded-all-the-time?discussion_truncation=15&utm_expid=66866090-56.xSggy8zmSwG3vMsivr7rOg.4&utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fmichaelwolf%2F2013%2F02%2F02%2Fwhy-applebees-was-right%2F See the comments of Clementine Rountree, be aware before reading that there is a large amount of profanity and obscene language in the comments posted on this article.

USU CMST 3050

Online Reputation Memo

To:	Jared Carlson
From:	Scott Call
cc:	Preston Parker
Date:	September 30, 2015
Re:	Online Reputation

Jared,

As you know, the world has become a smaller place because of the internet. People you have never met can have access to anything that is posted on the internet, whether you post it yourself or someone else posts it about you.

Today I am researching you to learn more about you as a friend and associate and also to show you what any person in the world can find out about you knowing only your name and how to use an internet search engine.

Jared Monte Carlson was born on November 17, 1987. He grew up in the small town of Cove, Utah, which is north of Logan close to the Utah-Idaho border.

As far as I can tell through Jared’s Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/jared.carlson.391?pnref=eh), Jared grew up his entire childhood life in and around Cove before attending Sky View High School in Smithfield, Utah. 

Jared’s time at Cove high school was highlighted by his participation on the men’s soccer team. In 2004, as a sophomore, Jared “Grizz” (apparently a nickname that Jared received from his teammates) Carlson played a “significant role” on the Sky View High School team that went on to win the state championship for men’s soccer in Utah in the year 2004. An interesting note is that Jared played center on this soccer team and one of the other leading contributors in the center of the pitch on that team was Jared’s cousin, Vic Carlson, who was in the same grade as Jared. The state championship team received a lot of attention in Jared’s junior year, the year they attempted to defend their title (http://news.hjnews.com/archives-1/a-wealth-of-returning-talent/article_44abf659-e64c-588b-a711-586b73e89d9a.html). 

Soccer played a large role in Jared’s life even after his glory days of winning state championships in high school. On August 29^th, 2013, Jared “Grizz” Carlson was chosen for the Utah State University Men’s Soccer team.  And it seems that he continued being a part of that team until making this heartfelt Facebook post  on March 6, 2014.

The announcement of Jared becoming part of the team 

https://www.facebook.com/UtahStateMensSoccer/posts/360135890756356

Soccer is not the only love in Jared’s life. Jared married his wife Michelle on December 21^st, 2013. They were married in a religious ceremony known as a sealing in the Palmyra New York temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were married in New York because that is where Michelle grew up. Another sign of his affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ is his two year mission served in northern California in the Oakland California mission.

Picture of Jared and Michelle on their wedding day.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151874035831669&set=pb.506056668.-2207520000.1443637096.&type=3&theater 

Researching Jared is not as easy as I expected it to be. The fact that he has a slightly common name makes it difficult to filter out the results that aren’t him. It is also my professional opinion as a Facebook stalking expert that Jared is not very involved in social media. I was able to locate two Twitter accounts atrtributed to Jared Monte Carlson, they both look like they belong to him but one of them (@car08057 https://twitter.com/car08057?lang=en) has not ever tweeted anything even though it was created in 2012 and the other (@Grizzlycarlson https://twitter.com/Grizzlycarlson?lang=en) tweeted only once. This tweet said “Hello World!” but apparently the world wasn’t listening because this tweet received 0 favorites or retweets and Jared has 0 followers and he never tweeted again after that.

LinkedIn proved to be equally passive regarding information about Jared although yielding more results. Once again Jared had two accounts attributed to him. One of them says that he is a soccer coordinator at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg Idaho and the other asserts his status as a student at Utah State University. https://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/f?type=all&keywords=Jared+Carlson&orig=GLHD&rsid=&pageKey=oz-winner&trkInfo=tarId%3A1443634840717&search=Search

I was unable to locate more information that I was sure applied to this Jared Carlson. On Instagram I found over 50 accounts attributed to Jared Carlson but none of them had pictures involving Jared. It appears to me that Jared is not involved on that particular social media website/app.

Through this search I found that Jared is a family-oriented man who enjoys soccer. 

Letter to Cousin

Dear Cousin,

I recently began taking a class to learn more about Technical and Professional Communication. The reason I am taking this class is to gain and improve important skills that will be useful as I complete my education and enter the professional world. I have only attended one class so far so my experience with the class is very limited and, as of yet, I’m not even sure what it is going to be about.

I wanted to write to you about what my initial perspectives of this topic and expectations of this class are. In my mind, technical communication is being able to effectively communicate a message using terms, grammar, and structure in the most proper way so that the message itself is what draws the attention of the reader instead of being lost in a sea of typing errors, misplaced punctuation marks, and dangling participles. Being an effective technical communicator is mastering the techniques of proofreading and the styles of correct writing.

Professional communication is similar to technical communication but with a focus on the content of the message being presented in a way that eases the process of cooperating with the receiver of the communication instead of correctly conveying the message itself. A professional communicator knows how to use the correct words to show that the message is sophisticated and professional while still being simple enough for everyone involved to understand.

Both of these skillsets are ones that seem to be very useful and very important to a business person in today’s world of widespread global communication. I look forward to learning more about these communication techniques and how I can use them more effectively to add these communication aptitudes to my repertoire of marketable skills.

In conclusion, Cousin, it will be interesting to see if my expectations of this class turn out to be similar to the reality of its content. I’ll keep you posted.

Sincerely,

Scott