History of Communication videoblogs and some rantings related to them

Have you tried making a self-portrait in a big blank canvass where no themes or limitations are required?

I think that any normal person will be pressured about this because this task may require an individual to squeeze his/her brain for all the creative juices to come out, plus the subject would be very complicated knowing that it is but a self-reflection of one’s self and lastly it may be because of man’s nature to seek attention and recognition from other people.

THE PROCESS

And in our OC152 class, though we are not required to do a self-portrait, a videoblog led me and my groupmates to have a very horrendous fun experience related to this.

Immediately after I heard what the topic is, I really got scared excited yet nervous because this topic already has a lot of information available on the net (yey!). But this is also the reason why this topic can also be difficult. The information on the web regarding History of Communication are A LOT and considering that we should start from “Adam and Eve” until Social Media. WOW… imagine how many billions of years should we tell in only a three minute video. Plus the fact that we are given the freedom to present it in any way that we want.

And after a few school meetings, a sleepover at Teacher Belle’s house, a dozen of energy drink (Extra Joss, Cobra, you name it…. ewww) and spending the WHOLE day at MOMO, we finally made our video with the help of a trusty digicam, laptop cam and Youtube.

THE PRODUCT

Here is the product of our sweat, blood, tears and eyebags:

Our concept was to traditionally show the History of Communication, starting from the current to the prehistoric times. We also took into mind the word “videoblog” where we wanted our video to have a lot of personal touch, and so we watched Chris Tucker’s Leave Britney Alone video on Youtube to have fun at the sleepover to have a reference on how we can present an introduction on the video.

Although Sir Barry saw that what Sam did on the video was a bit exaggerated, we actually wanted that effect though the reaction to that is not what we expected, still I commend Sam’s make-up on the video her impromptu acting skills at MOMO 🙂

THE UNNECESSARY PARAGRAPH

And another thing, if you ever watched the video, I was the one who looked like an idiot squealing “change” and waving my hands around. I just think that I need to explain myself here…

Actually when we filmed everyone’s part, we are asked to say the whole line “…Because you, yes you… you can make it happen… change” They said that the word “change” was just a cue of some sort as a sign to cut the recording. So after I said my lines using a serious face, I ended it with a funny “change” because I thought that it will not be included. *sigh* I clearly was betrayed by my own groupmates.

THE BETRAYAL

Anyway, back to the videoblogs in class, after I watched all the videos, I could say that my favorite was the video of Kath’s group (sorry groupmates! Im just being honest!) because I love the funny and cute animations plus it was very clear on how they presented it. Added to it was the nice background sound that they have chosen and the presentation of dates in the video.

THE ONLY PART RELATED TO THE CLASS DISCUSSION

That Saturday, after the videos have presented, the Conversation Prism was also presented to us. It looks very complicated when I saw it at first but it just basically talks about the different “tribes” of the netizens around the globe. Listing there almost all the top websites with its different purposes.

I think the main function of this prism is how it shows the Organizational Communication people like us that if ever we want to use social media as a venue for marketing, we should also realize the variety of people on the web with different interests.

When an OrCom person uses the internet to tap its targeted audience, we should not think that logging on the web and using blogs and forums is enough, there are still sub-divisions or tribes with different interests made for different purposes. So with these different tribes also comes different methods on how to properly approach them using the OrCom way.

I think the line “different strokes for different folks” is the best saying fit for this realization.

Wikinomics and the Wall

I never imagined that after spending more than 3 years in the respectable University of the Philippines Manila, me and my SENIOR classmates can still act childish and can go ballistic over a class activity. I guess it just showed how energetic and competitive our batch really is.

I remember July 4, 2009 we had a quiz regarding Wikinomics, I think I was also late in coming to class at that time because I spent the whole night reading the Wikinomics photocopy thinking that we will have a very difficult quiz. Yet to my horror delight we were only asked to do an activity that gave me a temporary hearing loss, a sore throat and an abused feet. But it was all worth-it because I do remember our team winning the activity. (yey!)

After the nostalgic activity (because it reminded me of my high school days where students would go crazy just to get the teacher’s attention during recitation) we then proceeded with a discussion regarding the topic of Wikinomics.

When I first heard of the word Wikinomics, I thought it was something related to the economic implication of Wikipedia or something. Although Wikinomics may be related to that, I learned that this concept is much broader and meaningful.

Though our readings in this topic has a lot of pages with hundreds of paragraphs, my understanding of the concept is that Wikinomics is simply about collaboration of different individuals to create something and make it significant for themselves and for others as well. Although this is a lose definition of it, that is what I basically understood about it.

Under the topic of Wikinomics, the market place has been mentioned along with consumers, producers and products. As I remember about the discussions, our professor said that Wikinomics is the new way of creating a new product by a company using other sectors to help in collaborating and developing it for a better output for the customers.

As an aspiring marketing professional, I found all these information very useful because it explains the status quo in the market place and our discussion also focused on the “wall” between the producer and the consumer.

This “wall” that was discussed is like the invisible barrier that separates the opinion of the producer on the things that they would make for the consumer and the feedback of consumer regarding the producers’ products.

In the near future, when I am at my own office surrounded by my constituents employees and collegueas as a marketing person, I would keep in mind about this barrier and would try to reach out to my consumers using Wikinomics to successfully create products that would focus, not only on what my company would want to sell but what our consumers would like to buy from us.

The long wait is over…

After two weeks of not updating my communication blog, I finally hit my head on a concrete wall, got dizzy and accidentally fell on a manhole…

Just kidding, actually it took my professor’s mentioning of my name in class for me to realize how irresponsible I had become in neglecting this blog. So after a little hiatus, I will do my best to forever update this blog ontime… *shudders*

And now I will do a bit of travel back in time – on June 27, 2009 to be exact – where we discussed the Communication Evolution with the BIS acronym.

B – broadcast

I – interactive

S – social media

I need not explain what these three models are because there will be a lot of websites that may explain these things in a more elaborate and clear manner, yet I will just share my insights regarding these things. (let’s just pretend that my insights may play a significant role in unlacking mysteries of the communication models, so the subsequent paragraphs are necessary..haha).

As I remember from our discussion, the broadcast model is just about listening to the company and being a passive audience, and compared to Social Media and Interactive model, the first one clearly shows how gullible the audience are.

Broadcast model also shows how powerful advertisers and companies are in manipulating the public into thinking that using a toothpaste will make a person meet his/her soulmate or drinking an energy drink will make a guy miraculously grow big-hard-greasy-yucky-oily-muscles.

If I compare broadcast to interactive and social media, I would think that the latter are better because they show how feedback and interaction goes. The people get to talk with one another, opinions are shared and deception in products are revealed.

Yet the broadcast model with all its deceiving advertisers and marketers (and I see myself as one in the future..haha) is still the most influential to the people compared to the two. Because although people log on to the internet, TV and newspaper is still the best place where we are irritatingly bombarded with different advertisements and shows.

Sure, we spend a lot of time on the internet, but that is not usually spent looking at forums talking about products and company websites, we go to the internet to entertain ourselves without the distraction of advertisements. Maybe that is why companies still pool in a lot of money in TV commercials, though they are aware of the power of the internet, they know that once a TV ad is repeatedly played in your favorite show, you cannot escape it. But on the cyberworld, just not clicking a banner will save you from that annoying ad.

But, I also have this feeling that soon, TV would only be a secondary source of entertainment and would be replaced by the internet with websites like Youtube as its ally. As a youtube addict myself, my interest in TV has disappeared. If I need current events, there is yahoo news, not only local stories but international as well. If need music videos, ever reliable youtube.com can give me all these videos plus it can be downloaded and repeated 1million times! If I need my cravings of asian dramas, there is mysoju.com with all the completed series and it is updated every freaking day. If I crave for a movie marathon, youtube and veoh is ever reliable. If my otaku (anime addict) blood is rising, there is crunchyroll.com.

Most of the things that we wanted may be found on the web, but the broadcast media is clearly important as well because this is still the channel by which the majority of people is still immersed in. Maybe after 5-10 years, internet would play a much bigger role in a consumer’s choices yet as long as it is not happening, I think that broadcast, interactive and social media are models that a company may use together depending on the target audience and goals that they want to accomplish.