What I've learned:
1) There's more to social media than tweeting about your lunch. Facebook and Twitter can exponentially help or hinder your brand. Be smart about how you use these platforms. Know what's going on in the background and what "allowing" a Facebook app really means for you and your information. Knowing the implications of posting/saying/linking something on any social media platform is key to using them successfully. Why? Watch the 7-second video below:
2) Group work and clients - you never know what you're going to get. By the grace of our professorly overlords, I was in a group who worked really well together. Would I have rather been on my own for a project? Yep. Am I a control freak? Sure thing. Does the real world let you work by yourself all the time? Ah, nope. So yes, I get why groupwork is important. And about clients: Good ideas sometimes don't have a place in their reality. Knowing the full scope of the reality of your client will help you deiver a product they can use. I believe our group had a pretty solid "big idea," the trouble is, that big idea didn't fit in with what the client could best sell to the bosses. No matter how much the medicine will help, you can't make the clients take it. Sometimes, you have to treat the symptoms instead. Our group made the medicine and we can hope they'll take it -- someday.
3) My social graph is what I want it to be. Before this class, I struggled with my digital identity and what it should be. Facebook was for friends and my "IRL" folks, while Twitter was for the connections I'd made with my faceless crew - my digital editing friends, knitting circles, etc. I had a hard time reconciling the two sides - one was definitely more anonymous (Twitter), while the other one was what I wanted people to see about me and my life. What did I learn? It's OK to focus certain channels at certain facets of your digital identity.
4) I coulda been a contenda. Or, at least a know-enough-to-be-dangerous programmer. Little did I know that this class would take me into my very own hell known as Object-Oriented Programming. With the introduction to App Inventor, we were able to create basic, mobile apps. Now, this Google Labs products is headed out to the big world of open source (and Google is closing its service as of Dec. 31) - read more about that news here. I've always been fairly technically inclined, but having no programming experience like this made for a challenge. A big challenge. I learned I really enjoy the technical side of this digital media stuff, but am not ever going to be a developer. I think the creative side needs to know a bit about how the "other side" works so the two can communicate better. This foray into codeland was truly interesting. Am I glad I won't see App Inventor again? You bet your boots I am. But in the end, ours was one of the only groups with a functional app. We were so proud. And we still lost... cue the next video:
5) Use it for good. With digital media comes the risk of negativity. Since it's such an immediate entity, allowing you to instantly communicate or react to pretty much anything that's out there, you run the risk of typing before you think. We should all take to heart the immortal words from the SpiderMan comic, "with great power comes great responsibility." With digital media, it's no different: Make sure what you're putting out there is really what you want someone to see with your name by it.
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