 Hi, I'm Tom Mackey, and welcome to Module 5, Understanding How Information is Packaged and Shared. And today we have two special guests, Anita Desieny-Brown and Sandra Barkovich. And I'm going to let Sandra and Anita introduce themselves. Anita? I'm Anita Desieny-Brown. I am Empire State College's college-wide career development coordinator. I received my bachelor's degree in 2012 through Amatsuni Empire's Center for Distance Learning. And after that I enrolled in the graduate program here at the college. I am just finishing up my master's degree in adult learning. And Sandra? And I'm Sandra Barkovich. I am an instructional support assistant with the Office of Academic Affairs. And I am also, as part of my student hat, the editor of the student newsletter I have been for three years. I received my undergraduate degree in business management and economics through the distance learning through Empire State College. And I am currently working on my Master of Arts in learning and emerging technologies. I am just getting toward the end. I'm on my last year coming up, so I'm very excited. That's great. Excellent. And the reason we've invited both Anita and Sandra today is that they're both very familiar with social media environments. And we'd like to have a sense of they're experiencing these environments before college and sort of what they've learned since they've been in environments. They've been in programs that have really used this heavily in online courses and of course in a program about emerging and learning technologies. So if you could describe first, because I know that you're both using Facebook and Twitter, could you say a little bit about your experiences so far as someone who's participating in these environments and what that's been like? From my perspective, I've used a lot of it both professionally and personally. Professionally, in my previous career, I had used the social media in order to share information about career development suggestions, different information about resumes and cover letters and just overall tips. So what I really would do is go in and look at information, decide whether or not to share it with the student body, and then be able to share it. So you're kind of making decisions all the time about what the information was, how you're going to share it within any particular environment. Right, because as a represent, the sites were college sites. So in order to share the information, I didn't want to share information that somebody could later on come back and say, this is wrong, possibly got in trouble for something. You really had to make sure that it was relevant information and it really had the student's interest at heart. And did you see that professional use different from your own personal use? For example, using Facebook, were you making the same kinds of decisions? And how did you separate out those different kinds of uses, both professionally and personally? Obviously, you talk different ways on your different platforms. So again, when I was a representative of the college posting things, I would speak in one, I'll call it a tone, basically sharing some information. Sometimes it was information about companies coming to campus, again, career development tips. And then on my personal side, I was a little more casual, but certainly I felt that no matter what I would put up there, it really has to do as a representation of me. So I was very careful of what I shared. And Sandra, was your experience similar? And again, let's talk about this even before you started studying in these environments. What was your experience like on your own discovering social media and using these kinds of resources? Well, I started very young before Facebook and the LinkedIn and social media was actually a thing. But I remember when blogs came out. And as I had started writing fiction and even though I am not published yet, I've been working toward that. And so all those many years ago, one of the things that my network of people and co-authors and things understood was that if you can get your name out there and interact with a potential fan base, then you have a better shot of making it once your book actually comes out. Because now you've got a whole slew of potential fans that are waiting for your book. They want to see and so they'll buy it when it comes out. So I started blogging and doing it with the thought that I would like to interact with my potential fan base. And so there was that aspect. Then as the years went by and I got into using Facebook and other types of social media, Anita is totally correct. You have to be careful of what you put out there. And when you get so comfortable sharing things so quickly on something like Facebook or Twitter, it's very easy to slip up and share something that maybe might not be the... You paint you in the best light. And then what happens is once it's out there, it doesn't go away. It exists forever. And people actually search those things and let's say you're looking for a job or something like that. So that's something that I was always cognizant of when I used social media, whether it was for my writing, I write romance. That was a different life than my searching for a job and things like that, posting my things on LinkedIn. However, I made a conscious decision. My writing life is with my own name. And so I understood that anybody looking for me and doing a search is going to also know that I'm a writer and I write dark paranormal romance on the steamier side. So I had to understand, do I want people to know this? And how can that affect me going down the line? And I don't think that you have to omit everything, but you have to go into it with your eyes open. And that's a big thing. And then once I got into learning at a distance, then it became something else. I interacted with my fellow students. So even though I was learning at a distance, I have friends that I've made in online courses that I've never actually met face to face, but I've actually made very good friends with them and we contact each other and we exchange information. We've kept up over the years. We know about each other's families and we support each other at a distance, and it's all through social media and things like that. So it's really, I know in one of my classes I was introduced to, and it might have been the same class that we took together, was Marshall McLuhan. And his views about the global village. And he was touching on something that he had really no full concept. I think of him as like a prophet, you know, talking about the future. But it's true. You meet people, I've got friends from Australia and things like that, that I have met in person because I've gone to conferences and things like that, but we can communicate instantly with each other and it's different. And it's interesting because in both of your explanation of discussion of this, you really, it's clear that you saw yourselves as producers of information in these environments. You were very aware of the responsibilities that go along with that production, creation of information, and also having the ability to share. And in your case, Sandra, it's really interesting because what you were doing is in many ways leveling the playing field. So instead of looking for a traditional way of publishing, you really were publishing your own writing in a different way. Was that similar for you, Anita, too, that you saw yourself really as an active participant in these environments and you were willing to share information? Is that something you had thought of as you're discovering these online environments? One of the other roles that I've had as far as professional role is marketing. So I certainly understand the branding that goes into it, the importance of sharing information about keeping consistency with your business's vision. And I have seen in one of the courses that I took in an undergrad, we had to develop three ideas of potential business plans. And in one which at the time I hadn't pursued was actually to start a photography business. And the way that you can do that through social media. Well, once I finished my bachelor's degree, I decided, well, why don't I try doing that? And through, again, through social media, I was able to not only research information about photographers, find out tips and engage with others, ask advice to people that I've never met before. Like Sandra said, there are people that she engaged with in Australia. And I was able to engage with people across the United States in several different countries and be able to get some feedback on both visual critiques of my work because I was able to share it through Facebook and some of the other gallery sites and be able to use it as a promotional tool as well. And I think that before one does that they do have to have an understanding, a clear idea of what they are doing because it can have both a positive and a negative impact. I'd like to add to that a little bit because when you look at it from a marketing standpoint, my background is customer service. And a lot of companies are now turning to social media to either provide actual customer service or when they see somebody posted something maybe not so flattering, they've got a couple of different avenues that they can take now. They can go ahead and address it properly and maybe try to fix the problem. Or if it's, you know, in customer service, customer actually is not always right. But there's a way to address that with them. Contrary to popular things. Exactly. But there's a way to address that with them. And you can certainly work with the customer and most people are understanding enough that if they see the other point of view then, you know, so you can address that properly. Or there are companies that don't address it properly and they make their own faux pas when they reply angrily or put the customer down for whatever the response is or remove the posting and things like that. So there's a certain responsibility that both sides need to take with social media and the use of it. And so with marketing, one of the things that I've been noticing a lot is the recommendation that if you're going to use social media as a marketing tool, it shouldn't only be to say, hey, I've got this for sale. Right. Buy from me. And one suggestion I had seen was a 4-1-1 rule. So you should post four just non-sale things like if you see something interesting, you post about it, you like someone else's posting that they're talking about. And then for every one actual marketing item where you're trying to sell something or you're marketing an event so you can do the 4-1-1 rule. And there's other types of rules that are similar to that. But it's not all about trying to the hard sell. Right. And social media can be very powerful because, and I've heard this said as well, it's easier to sell to a friend. If they look at you as a friend, they'll want to buy from you as opposed to the big conglomerate. So if you make friends, like on Facebook, then you are going to possibly build a better, more reliable and loyal customer base. And that sounds very similar to the project that you both worked on in graduate school focused on self-marketing. So could you talk a little bit about that project, how that project emerged, and it led to a collaborative project between the two of you that is now, it's available on YouTube, but in many ways, it demonstrates this idea of packaging and sharing information and some of the responsibilities that go along with that, especially if you're marketing yourself and you're thinking about how to present yourself online, which is so important. What I can do is we'll take it in the pieces. So we had met a couple of times to discuss the idea, which was pretty quick for us to decide on a topic, and then how we were going to break it down, and the topic was personal branding. I took it from the professional and career standpoint, and in that I did some research on the good pieces that you can use social media for, and then maybe things that people don't always think about, and making sure that whatever is out there that people are aware. So in looking up information, I really focused on your professional, not professional look, but your professional name, and what are things that can help enhance that? So for example, we've talked about blogs. I know that both in undergrad and grad school, I had to keep blogs. In grad, it was certainly cited sources, but it was a little more opinions-based, where in grad school a lot of it was, okay, this is the question of the week for the module, and basically do you agree or disagree? Support this idea through unscited sources. So I would decide on the topic for that module and write information based on my opinion of that. I wouldn't say that it presented me as an expert, but it gave me an opportunity to show that, yes, I do understand this concept, and this is the reason why this is my argument for why I support this. And it's out there, I use tags, so people can find the information. I did have a couple people that wrote to me that came across it, and being able to use social media platforms as a way to maybe not promote yourself, but be able to engage yourself even for your career goals. So I took it from the more individualistic, personal side of things, so the counterbalance to the career and looking for a job, a lot can be said for addressing the use and understanding of social media and the pitfalls at a much younger age, which a lot of very young children are using social media now, and they're not even at a cognitive level to understand the ramifications and the repercussions. You can tell them. They literally cannot understand what that really will mean for them later on, not until they're older and they reach that level of cognitive development. And so what we did in the video was, we certainly spoke about the career side of things in the professional aspect, but then we also talked about how to present yourself as a personal brand and how that will impact your career side of things. And so, you know, talking about, you know, drinking, going out drinking with your buddies and posting those pictures with the Red Solo Cup, it's not always so good. And I was actually talking to Anita about that project recently, and we were saying how that there was an article that I had just the other day read. Colleges have come out to say, and we suspected this always, and that's why we kind of chuckled over this. They've actually come out and officially said that they have looked at, especially athletic candidates, that they would have liked to recruit for their college, and yet the second they saw that their social media decisions weren't quite what they were looking for, they stopped pursuing them. And so here is, you know, high schoolers and younger even who have now, without even realizing it, completely cut their chances of something huge in their lives, monumental. It's life-changing. And so that's where we have to start looking at things, you know, from a much earlier standpoint. Yeah, I had seen that article as well, and this is happening also in companies too. Yes. When people go on job interviews, they're looking at career development, you're aware of that. The one thing that you should do, probably I would say, at least six months before you start a job search is to Google yourself. Because the information that is out there, once you create the electronic trail, and that electronic trail happens when somebody likes a picture and they comment on a picture, once it's there, once there's been some type of engagement, somebody has seen it. And you don't know who has seen it and how that information can be used. In a negative way. However, there's also a positive way too. There are certainly positive ways of engaging. You know, I think that people just need to, like we said, have a firm understanding of what you are sharing. And it's not just what you're sharing. It's what other people are sharing. So if you're at a party and you're acting crazy at the party, somebody else, you didn't take any pictures, you didn't post it, but your friend posted it. And now it's out there. And you may not even know that it's out there. So... So let me ask this question, and this is bringing it back to the meta-literacy model a little bit. In your experience then, you've been participants in these environments. You've been creators of information. You've been sharing information. You have a very good understanding of all the responsibility that goes along with this. In your view, through those pieces of it, which are really essential to meta-literacy, what kind of learning is taking place by being in those active roles? I mean, that's very different than reading about a topic or reading about social media. You're actually engaging. You're producing. You're learning new technologies, too, as you're going along. So you really have to adapt to this, because we know that Facebook is always changing. There's always going to be another kind of interface. So from your point of view, what kind of... What are the benefits of that learning that's... What kind of learning is taking place, and have you noticed that yourselves in your own active roles in these environments? I think that some areas that I find is that I'm reading a lot more information. You know, I... There have been times that I'm going to, you know, resort to the comfort and casualness of Facebook. So, you know, somebody may share maybe a political post, or, you know, not necessarily a political post, but a post that includes a blog. You know, I've... I actually had an engagement with a good friend of mine that had shared information, and I read it, and then I actually... So I then went to Google, and I started looking at the AP sites, and I looked at, you know, the national, you know, media sites to try and find this particular story. And I couldn't. So then I, you know, I actually went back and I said, you know, in a private message to her, and I said, I really think that you should think about what you're sharing here. I'm not saying you have to change your political view, but I'm just saying that what you're sharing isn't really accurate. And, you know, it just kind of looks a little foolish. Right. And, you know, after a while she went and she did her own research, and I said, you know, I just want you to understand that if I were to hand this in as a paper right now, because anybody can create a blog. Right. Anybody can create a blog. But there was no cited sources. It was not a true story. Right. So, you know, if I handed this in as a paper, I would get an F. So I think from one of the things that I've done is when I will share something or engage, I really try to be informed in the best way that I can. Yeah. Great examples. They are excellent. I worked for a backbone internet service provider and I worked in their net abuse team and basically we tracked hackers and crackers and also spammers and things like that. And so right from the very beginning, you know, this was many years ago, the internet was just starting to really take off, it was starting to boom long before I said social media. There was no Facebook at the time. But one of the things that we learned to do is to verify information through sites like Snopes and things like that. There's urban legends that go all over the internet and they travel like wildfire. My husband and I joke many, many years ago. He had written this totally fake piece just as a joke for a local newsletter that he had written for. And he had talked about radioactive nickels that were made from metal that had come from like Chernobyl or something like that and that if you had these between this date and this date, they were dangerous and they could cause issues. You keep them in your pocket. You should send all your nickels to this address and he made it sound so real and things. But people, like you said, they read that and because it sounded so legitimate and he had fake numbers just for the CDC and government and people would have taken that and there probably would have been a place where a bazillion nickels were now sent because people were panicking. It's very, very important to check that information and that's something that I've learned and altered my view. You never take anything at face value on the internet. That gets to the packaging piece too because you could create something that looks normal but it's not and that's again why it's so important then to teach people to be more critical readers of this information. One other aspect I'll ask is this dimension of collaboration and peer review and because so many of the examples and what you're talking about is really what you learn from each other and also how you in many ways play the role of teacher in these environments because it's a very de-centered environment. Have you, in your own experience have you thought about that about how and do you see the collaborative piece of that is very important because you're again you're not just reading information, you're really interacting you're participating, you're gaining insights from other users in these environments so how important is that collaborative dimension? For me again I know I will be able to say on the professional level but then even on the personal level I look at information and I decide is this something that I want to share a lot of times when I'm sharing something it is because I endorse the I'm not going to call it a product but I endorse the brand the person whatever I'm sharing I just have I feel a connection to and I'll even use SUNY Empire State as an example I've only been here as a month or for a month as an employee but I have shared all of the wonderful work of the college for many years and at the same time I also use that to be able to share not only as a post but interact with others and share the information and try and promote to other students same thing with businesses so I really take a good look at from that angle what I am sharing and I feel that whatever people are looking at I'll look at a friend's post and I sometimes will take that as an endorsement of a product of something to read as a new restaurant to try so I really I find the value with that but then I also you know looking at the sharing of social media on a professional level it is again whatever I am sharing I am sharing as a voice of that business so I have to make sure that I have a firm understanding of what the organization's mission is before I'm sharing the information because again whatever you're putting out there can come back and somebody could say well you gave me wrong advice so I'm going to take it from a different aspect with the whole entire collaboration and learning and teaching certainly from my online courses there is the discussion section portion of it and there you can look at it as you're just reading what other people are posting and that's interesting and move on you can look at what they're saying and understand and equate it to what you understand about life and your expectations and maybe understand a different point of view and use that and that's one of the things that I was introduced to and I talk about it all the time in my undergraduate program one of my courses up until that time I had never really given any thought to critical thinking proactively we were introduced to Bloom's taxonomy and things to get you to that higher level of thinking and suddenly I was looking at things differently and then you know you're not just knowing and understanding you are now synthesizing things and equating them to what's meaningful to you in life so the collaboration I think that aspect is one of the most powerful tools when you're talking about social media or any kind of digital communication back and forth there's always something to learn whether it's learning what to do or what not to do it's there and there's always a teaching or learning opportunity at all times Excellent points both of you have been great I'm so glad that you were part of this interview today the name of this course is empowering yourself in a connected world and I think you both appreciate that in your understanding and your insights so thank you so much for being here today and again thank you