"Stop By" or Stop My Heart?

The Internet has enabled corporations to stay connected and keep their culture of “togetherness.” While there are many benefits to staying connected via the Internet there are pitfalls. My experiences have shown me how difficult it is to understand the emotion behind electronic communication. Often it’s the delivery that determines the meaning of the words and not the other way around. By limiting communication to electronic forms, we run the risk of significant misunderstanding. I remember at my last job my boss would frequently send me emails with the subject line of “Stop by” with nothing in the body of the email. My natural reaction was in line with human nature and to think the worst and panic. What did I do???? Did I mess something up??? How much trouble am I in??? I would walk into her office and 9 times out of 10 she just wanted to talk about how things were going. Had she only walked over to talk, many minor heart attacks could have been avoided.

Online Networking - Is It Worth All the Hype?

How did it become acceptable for employees to vent their frustrations against upper management in online chatrooms? Instead of scheduling a private one on one meeting to sit down and  discuss issues, more and more disgruntled employees are turning to online forums. When did online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace become more popular than actual face-to-face networking? I admit that I am a Facebook user, however it was not by choice. A former co-worker set up an account for me. According to her "I was out of the loop" because I didn't use the networking tool. Like most users, I got hooked, but I still prefer talking to my friends rather than finding out about their lives via newsfeeds. I find it astonishing that people have 1000 "friends" on Facebook. It seems like people are just interested in having people join their social network so they can add to their already outrageous friend list. Can people really keep up with that number of "friends" and do they really care to? Long gone are the days of writing letters and sit down meetings in the workplace. Nowadays, it seems like the only way to get someone's attention is by "friending" them on a social networking tool or communicating with them via email. Personally, I miss the old days when people took the time to personally get to know someone, instead of just reading their online profile. 

My First Blog Post

Welcome to Sarah's blog!! I am a graduate student at American University taking ITEC 656 - this is my first time blogging. I will be making weekly blog postings. I look forward to hearing from you. Enjoy!

“On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own”

Sarah