Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
Depending on who you talk to, Laura and Karen obviously both had a wonderful adventure this past weekend at the 2009 Association for Psychological Science convention in San Francisco. Who had a better time, made better connections and saw more things is open to debate.
Here’s Karen’s take on the fun!
I also enjoyed myself. Thanks, ladies.
Roger
I think the last time I bought a new phone Aladdin was trading in his old lamp for a new one… and I felt the same way about it. My old phone ( a Treo) had great sentimental value to me as it had belonged to my daughter Kristin. The Treo was already getting fairly ‘long in the blu tooth’ but it was a big upgrade from the General Patton era ‘portable phone’ I had been using. Finally, I upgraded.
The htc phone from Sprint takes a bit of getting used to, but I am enjoying it immensely…. especially being able to see full screen versions of Facebook, tweet , watch video and all the typical stuff with 8 gigs of memory. My Uncle Cal ( a physicist by training ) would have loved it.
Now — as my daughters say — I won’t look too ‘hobo’ when I interact with the technophiles in San Francisco this weekend.
Roger Freberg
Our daughter Karen has always enjoyed the internet beginning with her first ‘Val Kilmer’ fan site in the 7th grade. Soon, her site evolved to a discussion platform for her track and field friends along with publishing a popular web based newsletter. During this time, she encountered many of the troubling issues that face athletes, celebrities and almost everyone who frequents the internet. The same questions came up over and over: how do I make a good reputation? How do I prevent a bad one from developing? And How do I get old stuff ‘off’ that continues to cause problems .
Today, Karen gave a lecture on the impact of social media on reputation management to a Psychology class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and hoped to answer some of these questions for students. By ‘iclicker’ , she discovered that virtually all of the students were on social media! Consequently, many students find themselves haunted by embarrassing pictures of themselves on the internet and some deeds … well, that they wished others didn’t know about. By example, Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps learned this the hard way. I am told, Karen offered helpful advice.
It was something to think about…
Roger Freberg
(too bad Cal Poly administrators weren’t around to listen)
California Universities area mixed bag right now, some are holding their own in this tough economy, others are like the General Motors of academia and they are cutting classes and turning away students. Why is it that two universities in the same state or city — for that matter — could have dramatically different circumstances? What is one doing to better their position and succeeding while the other is less successful or failing?
All educational systems are being affected and the survivors will tell you that it is due to offering students their ‘unique skill sets.’ Although this may be true to some point, the key seems to be in how people and organizations adapt to changing circumstances. In California, it seems that the private colleges and universities are adapting faster and smarter. While one public university is adding administrative staff with one hand, it is laying off faculty with the other. How does this make sense?
In order to improve my education on the subject, I studied every college and every university’s web page in California for a clue. Let’s just say that there were far more web sites than I could imagine! The difference between those who were adapting and those who were falling behind was like night and day. One successful school had a link asking prospective students to meet them on Facebook, while others facing increasing troubles haven’t updated aspects of their sites in years carrying links to defunct organizations and former employees years after they have left.
Not all great ideas are just in the private universities, the Florida university system announced that for about $22,000 you can pre-buy your child’s education at birth! I love it, a ‘stock option’ on education!
In our challenging environment, those who have the best chance of success of thriving in the world ahead are those individuals that have learned to adapt and find and develop skills of value. If I were planning my college choice , I would follow those who are winning already in this tough economy.
Roger
Let me say that I have always been a supporter of Public Schools; however, faculty are not running the university anymore and it shows.
My daughter Karen has been blogging for a number of years and has had her own web site since she was in 7th grade. I remember it started off as a Val Kilmer fan site then evolved into a site reflecting Karen’s impressive track & field experiences ( she even had a popular web based newsletter) as a Gator and later as a Trojan while in grad school.
So, I am not too surprised that she is doing things in her field of Public Relations that draws some attention. Business week lists ‘the most active stories based on user activity’ and here is a recent mention.
Sounds like your having fun.
Dad