Insights in Professional Communication

New technology is coming that has the ability to protect the privacy of social media users: Blockchain. Blockchain is basically an encrypted online wallet that users can set up to verify to companies that they are who they say they are, all while keeping that information secure and out of the hands of anyone who shouldn’t have access to it. Currently, Blockchain is being tested for financial transactions, but I see it being useful for any kind of transactions. While this technology is not quite perfected yet, a lot of companies are investing in the technology because we are in somewhat of a privacy crisis. Within the last few months there have been huge security breaches concerning online data, with the biggest example being Facebook’s recent case where they sold data to Cambridge Analitica, who then used that data to target unsuspecting users with fake news and other malicious information. This kind of data breach can have huge impacts on politics, safety, and th

When you want your complaint to be heard, sometimes you have to make it into a song. This is what Dave Carroll learned after he was given the run-around when United Airlines broke his guitar and then refused to take responsibility for it. After close to a year of calls and letters to United Airlines, Carroll was only getting back shoulder shrugs and “no’s.” Carroll initially wanted compensation to get his guitar fixed, or even flight vouchers to make up the loss, but United refused to do any of it. After he had had enough, Carroll paired his ordeal with a catchy tune and it didn’t take long for people to start sharing. According to the Wikipedia   article , within a month there were nearly 5 million views, but it only took one day for United to jump into action: they finally offered to pay Carroll for damages to his guitar. But by this point it was too late. Taylor guitar had already offered to replace Carroll’s broken guitar. So we have one company who is being r

Ok Go is an amazing band. They make incredible music videos, and Upside Down & Inside Out is no exception! The band takes us in an airplane for this video to show us some real-life zero gravity action! It turns out this video has a little social media history behind it. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. OK Go were having some success as a band before they started posting their awesome music videos, but they really became well-known with the viral success of their low-budget YouTube video, Here it Goes Again , which features the band doing some incredible treadmill moves! It didn’t take long for them to find this social media video niche was a perfect fit for them. They kept uploading their popular videos to YouTube and the masses kept watching them. In 2016, Ok Go worked with S7 Airlines to produce Upside Down & Inside Out. According to this article , Ok Go wanted to make the video a Facebook premier, where it was shown only on Facebook for 48 hours. There are

I honestly can’t figure out how the Texas based mattress company, Miracle Mattress, thought that making a joke out of a horrific tragedy that changed the world would make a good mattress commercial. Or how everyone involved, including the actors and the videographer, didn’t have any second thoughts while they were filming the commercial. And how in the world did anyone affiliated with Miracle Mattress watch the final cut and not think, “Hmm, this might be slightly offensive?” As someone who has done some marketing, I know how many steps go into making a video, even one that is low-budget, and I have summarized some of the steps taken from this website here: There has to be some conception: Person #1 : Hey, we need to promote our store to get some mattresses sold. Do you have any ideas? Person #2 : Well, let me put this last twin mattress on this tower over here and I will help you think of something. Person #1 : That’s it! You are putting it on the “twin tower

Ethics can be a tricky thing when it comes to Social Media. Let’s take the example of the Durrant family and the Ponderize scandal. It went down like this: Elder Devin Durrant, a general authority in the Mormon Church gave a talk and coined a new phrase, “Ponderize” which is the combination of the words “ponder” and “memorize.” Members of the church were moved by the talk in general conference, and conveniently, there was a website selling shirts with “Ponderize” for sale immediately during the break. Who was selling the t-shirts? Well, it was Elder Durrant’s son, Ryan. Apparently, he set up the webpage about a week before General Conference. It didn’t take long for people to start complaining that Ryan and Elder Durrant were trying to use Elder Durrant’s position in the church for their own financial gain. According to Wikipedia, I think this could kind of be considered spiritual opportunism , or using religion as a path toward personal gain. Since Elder Durrant got to c