New Media and New Markets: Free Choice Blog: Holiday Stress

The month of November is even more stressful for me this year. I am now a graduate student in IMC at Suffolk University, and I am trying to find a good balance for getting graduate work done and all of the other stressful holiday activities. I understand millions of others are also very stressed, but it critical that I learn how to balance everything. The day before Thanksgiving I will be traveling to NYC to Long Island which is always a nightmare. Perhaps, the only good part of not working full-time and only doing a part-time graduate fellowship is that I can leave at the crack of dawn on Wednesday. This prevents me from walking around in the dead of the night trying to get to Long Island to visit my family. However, I will still be walking around NYC with the millions of others, trying to get on the Long Island Railroad from various parts of NYC or other parts of the country. I love the Thanksgiving day holiday, and I am excited to see my family, but will undoubtably be in a lousy mood after the craziness of the holiday travel. My mood will perk up on Thanksgiving Day for the unbelievable feast my Aunt Liza makes. She prepares both Italian food, Turkey etc. Last year she made so many dishes she forgot to put one on the table! In the back of my mind on Thanksgiving Day, will be the insane amount of graduate work I have to do by December 9th. I am guessing I will be skipping getting up at 5:00 am to see the Macy's Day parade live in NYC this year. The TV will be just fine this year!

Additionally, my winter stress level is at an all time high because I have a million things going on between the Junior League of Boston, Graduate Student Programming chair, part-time fellowship, 3 classes, trying to find a full-time job and interviewing. Although, I absolutely love the festiveness of this time a year and seeing my friends and family, I can not help but wonder how I will fit everything in?  I always love to attend everything the holidays have to offer and will now have the struggle of attending holiday parties in NYC, Boston and Albany, NY. I pride myself in being creative and I love decorating for the holidays, baking, throwing holiday parties, visiting friends in NYC and Albany and playing with my dog. I most likely will not be able to do these creative tasks until late December because of graduate school.  I am usually very good at balancing my personal life, work life and school. However, with taking 3 classes I now feel in over my head. I also have the added challenge of trying to find the money to attend these events when I am only working part-time. Furthemore, I have no time to go to the gym which is also very stressful, especially when the pounds always seem to pile up during the holiday season. I can not wait for the first of the year to return to the gym, have a few weeks off  from graduate school and really try to be one of the only people that keeps his or her New Year's resolution!

New Media and New Markets: Discuss how one international group (country, city or subgroup) uses the Internet or Internet technology.

The International Center of the Capital Region is a not- for -profit organization community-supported organization that is funded by government grants and charitable contributions. ICCR is affiliated with the National Council for International Visitors (NCIV), the Foreign Policy Association, the World Affairs Councils of America (WACA), and the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs. My dad Bruce Bushart, has retired from the International Center of the Capital Region. His former position was the Executive Director. Currently, he still works for the center as a human service consultant. He has dinners for the international visitors at his house and is very involved in helping others succeed in the area. The ICCR's organiztional missions statement is to help the Capital District (the upstate New York area) engage with the world and help promote cultural understanding. The ICCR, promotes cultural understanding by serving as citizen diplomat, by hosting international visitors and delegations and promoting professional and cultural exchanges. The ICCR also promotes education, global awareness, cultural diversity and global issues on their websites and through email blasts. They frequently use the internet to promote the center's events in the communit.  Additonally, the ICCR  promotes the location of the ICCR  and other assets the Capital District has for international visitors. Finally, the ICCR promotes the different services for international groups in the Capital Region.


The website for the ICCR has a link for the Calendar of  Events, Galleries for International Photos, Resources, links for different programs international visitors can join, press releases,volunteer forms and much more. This is a passionate organization dedicated to making every international visitor feel comfortable and involved . The ICCR is great at involving community members from the upstate New York area (my hometown) to get involved in understanding different cultures. I have volunteered with this organization, and I am passionate about the organization's mission statement. In order for this organization to get more funding, I would promote what they do, using social media websites including: Facebook, Twittter, LinkedIn, Flickr etc. I would also organize events on Facebook to increase the attendence of the ICCR events.

New Media and New Markets: Discuss how one brand or nonprofit uses online blogs and online advertising

The Joslin Diabetes Center uses blogs to raise awareness of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. They use the online blog to discuss the outbreak of Diabetes in both Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes and the different classes they offer to the center's patients. The different classes they offer for diabetics are: are carb counting, nutrition classes, pump information and fitness information. The blog also discusses the different walks and fundraising events that people can participate in to raise money for this condition. Furthermore, the blog offers personal stories about Joslin patients in dealing with Diabetes. The blog also discusses how parents and friends can help his or her loved one that has just been diagnosed with Diabetes, or has been living with Diabetes for a long time. The blog discusses how having a child diagnosed with type 1 can be real shock. According to Dr. Lori Laffel, the head of Joslin’s Pediatric Diabetes Programs, "a diagnosis of Diabetes affects the whole family." A number of young patients who receive this diagnosis generally are caught off guard, as only about 10% have a family history of type 1 diabetes. The blog encourages all parents and anyone who cares for young children to be aware of the warning signs for the disease, which include extreme thirst, frequent urination, lethargy, flu-like symptoms and dehydration( http://blog.joslin.org/2010/10/childhood-diabetes/). The Joslin diabetes blog, discusses safe Halloween treats for diabetics, weight issues, mood swings, symptoms and questions that you may have about the condition. Online advertising offers basic information about  giving money to the foundation and more information about the Joslin Diabetes Center. I think Joslin Diabetes Center could do a lot more online advertising to increase donations for the foundation. More online advertising can especially be done to promote the Walk for the Cure for both Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.

I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes my senior year in college. At this time I was living in upstate New York, and blogs were not really that popular. In 2002, my friends and family would never look at blogs to give me medical advice. However, I was still shocked and confused and had a really tough time dealing with it and needed help. My friends and family wanted to help me understand and cope with what was happening to me. I feel that if they had known about the Joslin blog it would have helped out all of us. This step by step guide featured in the blog on helping a diabetic would have been very helpful to me when I was first diagnosed. This would have been easier and less time consuming for me than shifting through various medical packets, and literature trying to make sense of the condition. Blogs and online advertising are becoming a lot more popular, and I think this is a great source in obtaining information quickly.

New Media and New Markets Assignment 7: Find an effective use of PR online

An example of an effective use of Public Relations online is Coca Cola's sign in London's Piccadilly Circus to promote the World Cup and was on the official World Cup website.  This contains a "What's your Celebration" FIFA campaign with a signboard that displays personalized messages along with live scores and a World Cup news ticker. Members of the public were also invited to perform live re-enactments of his of her favorite goal on a pop-up Astroturf pitch. Ericsson also ran a Big Cheer online promotion at http://www.bigcheer.com/ which invited World Cup fans from all over the world to cheer on his or her favorite team through Twitter, Web and SMS. All individual tweets were printed live on confetti in a large box and the winner won a SonyEricsson XPeria X10.  This is a great way to promote the World Cup by getting international fans excited about watching the World Cup and allows them to participate in the excitment of  the greatest tournment of all time in soccer.

An additonal example of effective PR online to promote the World Cup was developed by Selena Cuff a CEO of a wine distribution company. She went to South Africa on a business trip and attended the first annual Soweto Wine Festival where she founded the stories behind the creation of each wine to be fascinating. After visiting South Africa, she developed Heritage Link Brands which imported and distributed wines from South Africa owned vineyards.

Los Angeles based Heritage is using the World Cup Tournment as the basis for its own  "Heritage Wine World Cup." This entrepreneur developed an online social media contest where each week the votes of Facebook fans and Twitter followers determine the winner in a match-up between two Heritage wines ( http://www.inc.com/). The next step involved the winning wine of each bracket advancing to the next round or the FIFA version. This promotion also involved a pool component where the person who chooses the most winners takes home a prize. The prize is a year membership to the company's wine club and dinner with the wine owners in the Fall.

This company has been doing tastings around the USA to create brand awareness, celebrate soccer and increase wine sales. Heritage will also be the offical wine supplier for the  Chicago's World Cup the "Final Match." Heritage has also won a small business administration loan to help pay for the World Cup promotion's. I think Heritage did an excellent job promoting the World Cup by combining their own individual passion for soccer with their passion for wine. This is successful for the Heritage business because wine sales increased and they helped promote the World Cup through innovative strategies with social media.

New Media and New Markets Assignement 6: Discuss an Internet Policy Issue

An example of an internet policy is privacy in the Marriott and Ritz-Carleton  hotel chains. Mariott and the Ritz-Carleton explain how they address the concern for privacy issues in their policy private statement. The statement consists of several general and technical details about what the hotel changes does to address hotel visitors' privacy issues. The statement was updated in June 2010 and now has a click to chat feature which includes the "remember me" enhancement for web-enabled mobile devices. This Click for Chat also describes the new mobile Blackberry and IPhone applications, and change the department number in the contact address.

Policy privacy issues that hotels visitors are concerned with are: Browsing Information, Information that explains how the Marriott or Ritz Carleton collects and how to use it, Children's Privacy, Reservations, Click to Chat, Accessing Marriott.com from a Web-enabled Mobile Device, Updating your Marriott Rewards Account Information, Marriott Rewards Communications and Use of Member Information, Creating an Online Password for you Marriott Rewards Account, Marriott Rewards/Chase Card Services Visa Card, Securing the Transmission and Storage Information, Travel Related Services, Disclosure of Information to Third Parties, Cookies, Pixel Tags, Emails, Investor Relations Communications and Vacation Owners issues.

As a Marriott Vacation Club Member, I am most concerned with the issue of updating my Marriott's Rewards Account Information and computer cookies because I am concerned my point total will not be accurate. If my point total is not accurate and people find out my password to my Rewards information, my information will not be up to date and I will not get my free trips or discounted trips. I am also concerned cell phone companies can get my credit card information on my mobile device if I book a trip online. Finally, I am also concerned about the Remember Me feature. If another individual found or stole my phone, they could easily book a trip I may not find out about right away which is very concerning.

New Media and New Markets Assignment 5: Find two examples of an ineffective website

One of the websites that I found to be extremely ineffective is:  http://www.sportingnews.com/. This website is very cluttered and is very confusing to navigate for several reasons. There are many advertisements that pop up which take away from the content of the recent news in different sports leagues. The advertisements are often bigger then the news which takes away a lot of info from the site. The layout is very hard to follow and because there is so much going on the sight is constantly reloading. There is a lot going on on the homepage  The navigation bar with the vertical drop down menu interferes with clicking the different news features. The website is constantly freezing and is making me want to go to a different website to get the latest NHL and Baseball scores.  The way the site is designed makes it harder to learn what is most important such as ground breaking news of transactions or updated scores. Every sport and every news story headline is just mixed in together to create a lot of confusion on the sporting news.  The Video section is also on the bottom of the page which makes it harder for readers to even find it on the homepage. A lot of sports readers find it interesting to be able to learn more about his or her favorite store and look at recent plays online so this should be more towards the top of the home page. 


Another website that is ineffective is: http://www3.shopping.com/. 
This website is ineffective because some pages do not open for the good you are shopping for which causes the website to lose money. If the link does not open and the customer can not buy the good they are shopping for they are already going on to another website that they can buy everything from. This website then loses money on more then one good because the customer is already gone and on to the next site where they can easily checkout. The discounted items are at the bottom and are not easily visible from the home page. The advertisements are also bigger then the items shopping.com is selling which suggests the ads are more important and valued then the actual products. The page is also very confusing to navigate and is very cluttered and unorganized. The brands that shopping.com offers is also in the middle of the page and is very poorly located. The brands should be located at the top so people no right away on the options of brands that they should be able to preselect on the site. The way the colors are on the page also makes all the shopping goods blend in which makes it hard for viewers to know exactly what shopping goods are that shopping.com carries. 

New Media and New Markets Assignment 4: Give an example of diffusion of Internet technology....

An example of diffusion in internet technology in the United States was the development of internet banking in 1995. Wells Fargo allowed customers to access there banking account online and the first only internet bank opened which was called Security First Network Bank. Since 1995, banks have been increasing their online presence because it leads to more productivity gains for the bank . The internet has made it much easier for the banks to reach and serve there customers 24.7 regardless of where the consumer is located. It also allows customers to always have access to their bank statements 24/7 and get a detailed summary of what he or she is spending his or her money on.

Furthermore, it allows the banks to cut down costs by conducting standardized, low-value-added transactions such as balance inquiries, account transfers and bill payments through the online system. This allows banks to focus on their specialized high transactions such as small business lending, investment banking and trust services.

Bank customers use to be unsure about handling and checking their balances online especially those customers that used small localized banks. Customers became more confident with doing online banking when they found out that a large number or large banks would be adapting internet banking. Customers were also more likely to do online banking when they found out banks that offered an online banking option were also stronger performing banks overall. In 2003 banks attributed an increase in profits as a result of adapting to new technologies such as online banking ( Berger, Allen and Loretta Mester (2003). “Explaining the Dramatic Changes of Performance of U.S. Banks: Technological Change, Deregulation and Dynamic Changes in Competition,” Journal of Financial Intermediation, 12(1), 57-95).