Last week I tried to bring up an important email on my phone only to find that I couldn’t log into my email. My G-mail account had been hacked recently, forcing me to change my password quickly and without putting much thought into it. I had been using my old password for almost nine years now, a terrible habit, but I had grown comfortable with its familiarity. Now I stood outside my meeting, unable to access this important email, because I was unable to remember my new password.
Sure, I had written it down, but the sticky note on the bottom of my desk was no good to me, as I stood outside the conference, furiously typing in possible combinations of numbers and letters in a desperate attempt to break into my own account. I ended up going into the meeting without the numbers I wanted off my phone, and surprisingly enough the world didn’t end. The situation did get me thinking, however, about how dependent I had become on my computer and phone remembering things for me. I can’t even imagine the kind of wreck I would be if I were to lose my phone or computer and the data on them for good.
As the conveniences of modern technology have grown, my powers as a mental storage machine have begun to regress. Back in middle school, I had many phone numbers of friends and family memorized. Now I sometimes stumble when reciting my own phone number. Why waste brainpower remembering anything these days? Our cellphones save hundreds of contacts and our computers can automatically fill out our log-ins and passwords for us. This system of entering all my information at once and then forgetting about it has been very convenient up until now.
Last week's email debacle opened my eyes to just how easy it would be for me to lose years of collected data. With all the advancements in collecting, storing, and sharing information, how much of this data is going into our long-term memory and not just a bookmark folder on our desktop?
For me, it appears that most of what I think I know is reliant on a fully functioning phone or computer. Often, I find myself saving online news articles to read at a later date, only to delete them the next time I clean out my bookmark folder, the articles still unread. Technology has made it so easy to find and store information that I fear we spend more time searching than we do absorbing what we find.
Everyday we are bombarded with emails, text messages, conversations, commercials, television shows, new acquaintances, and news stories. All this information is coming at us in a constant torrent throughout the day, and we are expected to take it all, process it, store what we find important, and quickly move on to the next item of business. We have become so greedy by the stimulation of new information that we now even create and horde daily happenings on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. It is no wonder I can’t remember a password I made up with only a day ago; it is buried under a pile of never ending information. I have grown too accustomed to having all this information and technology saved for me, data that I can lose with a simple hard drive crash or stolen phone. How easy it would be for me to lose all my music, emails, contacts, bookmarks, and passwords in an instant. Yes, I have everything saved on a back up drive, and cloud sharing systems are making this less of an issue, but just the thought of all the reliance I have put into technology is a little frightening. My inability to access my email, it seems, has shaken me awake from this digital dream, opened my eyes to just how much I could lose if something happened to my computer or phone.
Our ability to find and share information will only continue to improve in the years to come. Unfortunately, the unaltered human system cannot hope to contain all the data that we are able to access. It's important for us to develop ways to filter the constant stream of garbage that is thrown at us each and every day, storing it not only in our electronic devices, but also in our memory. I am not saying down with the machines, throw down your web-enabled devices, and go back to living in the woods; I just think it is a good idea for us all to slow down once in a while from our constant hording of information and actually absorb some knowledge.
By: Embra King
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Tech Dependence
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The Power of Community
Last week AT&T released a new commercial entitled “Responsibilities”, a thirty second piece that plays on the idea that everyone in a typical office uses their smart phone for everything but actual work. It has received an explosion of views, about 700,000 YouTube views in just the first four days of being online. Now while this commercial is funny, its popularity doesn’t stem from its humor, or the quality of the product it is selling, but rather it is all the attention it has received on Reddit.com.
Nate Dern was making his commercial debut after three years of auditioning and decided to share his success with the community of Reddit. He posted his video on the site last Monday and to his surprise gained an explosion of views over the course of that first day as hundreds of people “up voted” the video promoting it the front page for all to see. People seem to have fallen in love with the idea that one of their own, a fellow Redditor, had made it into a TV spot, and all he says is a simple “Huh?” As this blog post was being written, Nate Dern’s commercial debut has 2882 total “up votes” on Reddit and was at one point the number one link on the websites front page.
What this phenomena is demonstrating is the marketing power that third party post sites are capable of producing. The AT&T commercial is not the first company to benefit from being posted on Reddit, however.
The spread of Chuck Testa’s taxidermy commercial and the video of Judge Williams beating his daughter exploded into the homes of millions, thanks to the community voting system of Reddit. The site has become a powerful tool for spreading news, images, videos, and complaints about companies or services. According to businessinsider.com, Reddit had 1.8 billion viewers in the month of October alone. With this kind of viewership, companies would love for their products or services to get some percentage of this attention.
One reason that Reddit is a powerful tool for spreading information in such a rapid manner is the fact that it does not create exclusive social circles like Facebook or Twitter, but instead lets anyone post and everyone view these posts. Once something is posted, anyone can view it, and those who have created a free account can vote for or against the post. The more positive votes a link receives, the closer the post will move towards the front page.
The problem with all of this, however, is that the products in the commercials are not the ones benefiting from all the publicity; it is the actors themselves. Sure, thousands of people have viewed the commercial, but at the end of it, are people thinking I want that phone, or “Man, well executed, huh?" The millions of views that Chuck Testa’s first commercial received has not translated into increased sales. It has, however, spawned many spin-off videos and started a small demand for Chuck Testa t-shirts. The brand loyalty in this case is to the Mr. Testa and Mr. Dern, not the product they are selling. People online are pushing for Dern to be featured in a second commercial with AT&T and maybe this time with a couple more lines.
What advertisers need to learn is how to harness the communal benefits of sites such as Reddit or Digg, to create attention around a product much like it has for people. The static advertising word that Don Draper lived in is dying, and we are move into a marketing world run by the consumer. It is becoming apparent that companies need to figure out the best way to harness this communal power. It has shown its ability to create an almost cult following for people such as Nate Dern and Chuck Testa, but its potential for creating such a buzz around a product is yet to be tapped.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Introducing the Charlotte Twitterati™
This month’s Top 25 brought to you by Fiberon Composite Decking.
CGR Creative is proud to introduce the first monthly installment of our Charlotte Twitterati.
The Charlotte Twitterati is our monthly index of the Queen City’s most influential citizens. Each month we will present an updated list of the top 25.
Top 25
- Jeff Elder - @jeffelder - 117
- TweetMyJOBS- @tweetmyjobs - 116
- mommywords - @mommywords - 115
- Chris Harrington - @chrisharrington - 113
- Donna Maria Coles Johnson - @indiebusiness - 112
- Mysty Wuori - @mysticle - 112
- Jeff Gluck - @jeff_gluck - 111
- Genevieve Jooste - @GenevieveJooste - 110
- Osfoora - @osfoora - 110
- Brandon Uttley - @brandonuttley - 109
- Charlotte Observer - @theobserver - 103
- Lauriana Zukowski - @laurianaz - 102
- Sandy Salle - @hillsofafrica - 102
- Uncle Bob Martin - @unclebobmartin - 99
- Bridget Haymond - @bridgethaymond - 96
- Discovery Place - @discoveryplace - 94
- Denny Hamlin - @dennyhamlin - 94
- Scott Speed - @scottspeed - 93
- Jenna Fryer - @JennaFryer - 93
- Marc DeCaria - @MarcDecaria - 92
- Charlotte Bobcats - @bobcats - 91
- SPEED - @speed - 90
- Corey Anderson - @coreyanderson - 88
- The Android Site - @theandroidsite - 88
- Kathleen Hessert - @kathleenhessert - 87
How We Calculate It
The Top 25 is determined by combining individual scores from Klout.com and PeerIndex.net. We get the initial list from the top 50 listed on TwitterGrader.com and WeFollow.com. We create a list of all the names and then look at their Klout and PeerIndex scores. The composite totals give us the monthly Charlotte Twitterati.
Charlotte, NC
According to TwitterGrader.com, Charlotte is the 27th most active city in the United States and 41st in the World. This is based on number of users listing Charlotte, NC on their Twitter profile.
Follow the Twitterati
http://twitter.com/#!/cgrcreative/charlotte-twitterati
Keep up with the Joneses by subscribing to our list on Twitter which tracks every member of the Twitterati in one group.
About CGR Creative
CGR Creative is a full-service advertising agency located in Charlotte's historic Southend area. We offer web design, graphic design, search engine optimization, printing
Who Did We Miss?
Do you have any recommendations for a highly influential, Charlotte-based user we missed? Please send us an email with your nomination and we will add them to the index. Send your message to Will Lang - will@cgrcreative.com
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter as well - @cgrcreative.
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