A Visit From Erik Hanberg

The other day, Erik Hanberg came in and talked to our class. He works for mostly nonprofit organizations, except for his wife's graphic design website MaryHolsteDesign.com. It was a really good presentation and he knew a lot about what he was talking about. He first talked about salary/hourly work vs. scalable work. Salary/hourly you have a fixed income that is consistent. Scalable work is completely different. There is no fixed hourly pay and it doesn't matter how many hours you put in or don't put in. You basically do something that will either make you a lot of money or it wont. Some of the examples of scalable work included real estate, commission, web design and stocks/assests.

Hanberg then transitioned into this idea of the internet being a "black swan." It means that the past doesn't necessarily predict the future. Hanberg's example is that he has written 9 novels and JK Rowling has written 7, but only she is a billionaire. Although I agree with most of what Hanberg talked about, and maybe I don't have the credentials to critique his work, but I felt like he had a biased opinion on the black swan. He kept saying, "It's all about luck" and "It's all about getting discovered by the right people at the right time." Yes, this is true, if you are in the right place at the right time you can get very, very lucky. However, when it comes to hard work and employment, I don't necessarily think it's about luck. I think if you work hard enough and really try to get people to notice your work it will pay off; that has nothing to do with being lucky. If I write an incredible novel, but don't try to get it published then nobody will know I have written something amazing. I agree that maybe JK Rowling got a little bit lucky. She was on welfare and someone just happened to pick up her muddy rough draft of Harry Potter, which made her millions and millions. But how do we know that if that wouldn't have happened that she wouldn't have tried to get it published anyways?

Overall though, I liked Erik's speech and I thought he did a good job at explaining working in a virtual world.

Scavenger Hunt

The other day in class we were given a packet that included a plethora of questions we were required to find and answer. The tricky part is, the answers were all online and some were not so easy to find. My team (there was three of us) split the packet into thirds and began searching. I personally love doing scavenger hunts. No matter the topic, they are always fun. Although, this one was slightly frustrating just for the fact that sometimes I wasn't sure if I had found the correct answer or if I just thought I did. In the end, my group found everything on the list in the alloted time.

The most difficult question for me was planning a Disneyland trip for two adults and two kids. The family had to stay at a specific hotel that was only available in the year 2010. However, when you go to book the flights, they can only be within 331 days from the day you book them. So I had to find a day when the hotel was available and the flight was within limits for the question to be correct. As well, the Disney website was running slowly because at least 15-20 students were accessing it at one time, all in the same room.

Overall, it was a fun and successful activity. It taught me that when searching for things on the internet, you need to be exact and precise in order to find exactly what you are looking for.

Convergence?

When the professor started talking about "convergence" I will admit I was completely lost. I had no idea what he was talking about, even after the lecture was over. He kept reiterating that we needed to remember this word and its definition, but I didn't even know what that was! So I was slightly relieved when he told us to blog about it, which gave me a better understanding of what it really is.

So naturally, I Googled the word "convergence". The first link that showed up was "Welcome to CONvergence!" which is a "General SF convention held in the Twin Cities area in early July." Apparently it's a hotel that offers a ton of activities. I won't lie, it sounds like a lot of fun. But this didn't really solve my definition dillema. So I went to the next link which happened to be Wikipedia. Wikipedia offered two links to the word convergence. The first was a general definition of the word which is, "...the approach toward a definite value, a definite point, a common view or opinion, or toward a fixed or equilibrium state." The second link was to "technological convergence" which is, "...the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks.Convergence can refer to previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video that now share resources and interact with each other, synergistically creating new efficiencies."

The second one is the definition I think our professor wants us to remember. Now I understand that convergence is really just taking two seperate ideas and melting them together. Or moreover, taking different technological devices and creating one, big, new device that will bring in millions of dollars. If you haven't caught on by now, I'm referring to the infamous iPhone. Apple took iTunes and a full touch screen phone and morphed them together to get the iPhone. The phone is pretty much an iPod except it makes calls and allows texting. (Of course this is the example my teacher used, but hey, it was a good one.) That's a pretty smart idea, and it turned out to be a hit because millions of people were sold into the idea. I remember going to the mall opening day and there was a line from the Apple store all the way out the doors of the mall itself. That's incredible and insanly ridiculous. No offense, but I'd never stand in a line for a phone. Never, never, never. Not unless of course it does my homework for me and does all my errands. Then maybe in that case I'd be willing to sacrifice my entire day for a peice of technology.

But aside from my ranting there, convergence has caused a lot of useful and awesome technologies to emerge. The word can be complicated, but in essense it's pretty simple to understand. I know more things will come from convergence, and I'm excited to see what the next great idea will be.

Physical Doctuments vs. Digital Documents

I used to have a Photobucket account, but it was merely to put Googled pictures on my MySpace. It didn't hold any personal pictures that I cared about. As for a physical photo album, my mother started one for each member of the family, but never finished. I have a lot of physical and digital pictures, but I'm not the type of person to prioritize them in an album. My thought is, if you lose them, you can always take more. Yes, I understand that you can never get those memories back, but let's be real, how often do you really go through photo albums?

As for other document types, I do try and save school work digitally and physically. I am a freak about saving school work. I'm terrified at the thought of not having something that I may need in the future. I save stuff not only on my computer, but on my USB drive and also in a folder at home. It makes me feel secure knowing that I will at least have one of those items. Unless of course my house is engulfed in flames and all three are stuck inside (which we hope will never happen!)

I think physical and digital documents both have their ups and downs. I can't really say I prefer one or the other, but I do use both for different reasons. I'm sure someday digital document types will overpower physical ones, but that day is way, way, way in the future.