Many have probably heard of the term VPN before, but not many are able to explain what it is and what it actually does.

VPN is the abbreviation for Virtual Private Network.

If not for my exchange program in Shanghai, I would probably not have known about it.

For those who are interested in what a VPN actually does, here’s a link to lifehacker.com. I came across this page in one of my MIS classes at Sauder.

It wasn’t too long ago that I was a participant in the UBC Shanghai Summer Program jointly conducted by our beloved Sauder School of Business and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Upon landing in Shanghai Pudong International Airport, I felt lost. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that I was carrying back then seemed to have lost many functions which I rely on, on a daily basis. For instance, Google Maps doesn’t work, neither does Facebook nor Twitter. It’s the first time I’m entering Mainland China since I was 10 years of age. I’ve heard of the Great Firewall of China in many of my MIS classes but this summer was the very first time that I’ve had to experience it personally.

Of course, being a BTM student, I’ve come prepared with a VPN app installed in my phone and laptop but the initial feeling of being deprived of Facebook and Twitter was an experience by itself. It compelled me to wonder how people here can possibly live without being able to access independent news channels and social media platforms? And also, how long would this be able to last given the emergence of new technologies?

Photo adopted from: http://qz.com/272854/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-umbrellas-in-hong-kongs-umbrella-revolution/

By now, most of us would have heard of the #umbrellarevolution unfolding in #hongkong and are taking news feeds on this demonstration for granted. But those who have never visited Mainland China before will never fully understand the extent to which the Chinese government has gone to in blocking media outlets that go against its manifesto.

However, news feeds of the #umbrellarevolution were leaked into Mainland China via Virtual Private Networks that had made access to Western media possible.

This made me ponder about how much longer can the Central Government continue to rule the online community with an iron fist. With emerging technologies allowing access to blocked sites through the Firewall, it seems to me that it is inevitable that the Central Government loosens its grip on the Internet, and the time has come for it to do so.

So what does this mean for Western social media platforms? Will they be able to penetrate the Chinese market? Or will China-based social media platforms such as WeChat and WeiBo continue to stand strong from the protectionism of sorts that it has benefited throughout this time of censorship?

For now, only time will tell, but one thing seems certain: The likes of Facebook and Twitter are slowly edging beyond the Great Firewall of China

P.S. UBC offers all students free VPN accounts via CISCO Connect. Simply download the app and login with your CWL and Password!

Photo taken from: http://blog.rezscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/twitter-resume-360.jpg

I was just browsing through the blogs of my classmates and found this to be rather interesting, so I decided to re-blog this on my own blog.

I’ve never heard of the Twesumé before. And I believe not many people have.

So, to summarize Sam’s blog post, a Twesumé is essentially replacing traditional the resumé and cover letter with twitter feeds that are strategically tweeted via meaningful and revelant hashtags. In a nutshell, I suppose it focuses more on the job applicant’s take on various issues such as his/her stand on the #umbrellarevolution, whether #justintrudeau should be Prime Minister and what not. In a way, it is a good thing for the hiring company’s HR department as the Twesumé can even tell if we are true #canucks fans when we tweet about recent games. What’s more? The people whom we deem influencers and follow them tell others a lot about us.

One thing I agree on Sam’s post is that the 140 character limit twesumé beats having to go through a pile of 2-page resumé and cover letter documents. Although the HR staff would be required to read a few more tweets from the applicant’s feed, it certainly saves time in general and by now we can all admit that browsing through tweets is way more interesting than reading cover letter one after another.

From the applicant’s perspective, say goodbye to military-style of formatting the resumé and cover letter!

Applying for jobs have never been more fun!

In this day and age, it is normal to see organizations take to social media to engage people for various purposes: attract top talent, conduct marketing campaigns and what not.

On the façade, this sounds like any other enterprise. However, the organization we’re talking about here is ISIS.

Within the past half a year, the terrorist organization has taken to social media to promote its campaign.

And how does it do so? By hijacking “seemingly benign hashtags” on Twitter and issuing messages in various languages. One such example was #WorldCup2014 where the propaganda of #ISIS was spread via the hashtag in English, French, Russian and Turkish.

Such a move is strategically intelligent for the terrorist organization to appeal to a younger demographic, making the organization “look cool” to “young and angry Muslim men” who have been “susceptible to indoctrination”. So far, this has resulted in the militia being “well-supplied” with a sizeable fighting strength.

Evidently, the clever use of social media such as the hijacking of Twitter hashtags have proven successful thus far. Just a look at the number of foreign fighters in the force would suffice in making this point clear.

But my question is: is this a smart move for ISIS?

Think of social media as a relational database.

Each field on Facebook or Twitter is just one piece of information closer to tracking down ISIS militants. The “friends” who are displayed on the Facebook page of ISIS can be monitored by anti-terrorist agencies. This effectively gives the law enforcement agencies more leads to bringing ISIS down.

So after all, was it a smart idea for ISIS to broadcast their activities on social media and make them visible for all to see?

I guess this is the stage where the plan backfires.

Adopted from:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-shouldnt-stop-terrorists-from-tweeting/2014/10/09/106939b6-4d9f-11e4-8c24-487e92bc997b_story.html

Photo taken from: http://news.siteintelgroup.com/blog/index.php/entry/192-follow-isis-on-twitter-a-special-report-on-the-use-of-social-media-by-jihadists

Here’s Apple’s latest Keynote, summarized by Mashable into a 90 second video clip.

So Apple has just released two new iPhones, a new pay system and an Apple Watch due to be launched at the beginning of next year. The Apple Watch is one that is dubbed to revolutionise social media.

Within the small dimensions of the screen, social media companies would have to ensure that every single character that is posted counts. Frankly put, nobody’s gonna read an essay on the Apple Watch. Even Twitter’s 140 word limit might be a challenge to read on the Apple Watch.

Once again, Apple has simplified and redefined communication.

If the new product becomes popular in the consumer market, we’ll likely be seeing posts that contain less words, and by less, I mean lesser than Twitter’s current 140 character limit. Each word posted would have to appear in a font size decently visible enough for the Apple Watch user. Each character must entice the viewer and convince him or her to open the post from his iPhone or iPad to continue engaging with the company.

This simply takes the concept of simplicity to another level.

In February next year, it’s time to brace ourselves for a rather big jump in the development of social media. For now, a good way of preparing for that change is to perhaps get used to the fact that apps will no longer be displayed in squares and grids.

Ever felt like going for a workout in the evening but find little or no motivation to do so?

Here’s a solution: Tweet about it.

This is what Liz Paul did. It was 9pm on a Sunday and it is only natural that she couldn’t find the motivation to get up from the couch and do a workout. One tweet changed all of that.

She tweeted, “…it’s 9pm on  a Sunday and I didn’t work out… I really shouldn’t go run in the dark should I?”

Within moments, she got responses from a legion of supporters telling her “Yeah! Go run!”

Others offered her other workout options such as static workouts but basically, everybody drove home the point to her that she should get up, do something and stop being lazy.

End result: Liz eventually went out for a 3-mile run. Mission accomplished.

According to researchers from London, people who take to social media to broadcast their exercise or diet regime have lost “significant amount of weight.” Assistant Professor Christopher Wharton from the Arizona State University claims that “it’s the social push that helps make people accountable”.

Losing weight is not only physically painful, but also emotionally draining and borderline demoralising when the results are not immediately visible despite a drastic change in lifestyle. This is also where social media comes in to make things easier for the individual by being able to allow him or her to connect to others for some encouragement and motivation despite being physically dispersed from the ones whom he or she is connecting with.

Many health and lifestyle apps are now able to synchronise the individual’s fitness data into various social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. One such example would be Garmin Connect, a fitness analytics app that tracks mileage, power output, heart rate and what not over a period of time.

So next time you wanna burn some calories, be sure to post about it! Chances are, you will be much more likely to overcome the lethargy and exercise!

Adopted from:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/06/353505527/social-media-the-new-weapon-in-the-battle-to-lose-weight

Being a student majoring in Business Technology Management, I have heard of Google Analytics far too many times not to know exactly what it does and I cannot contain my amazement of the capabilities of this web monitoring tool.

Registering for Google Analytics is as easy as snapping your fingers. What’s better? It’s free too! All you need is an email account registered with Google and it generates a couple of .php codes for you to insert into each page of your webpage. If your website is run by WordPress, then all you need to do is embed the code in the dashboard once and you’re set!

So what does Google Analytics do? Besides being able to track the total number of hits, referrals and visits like most proprietary analytics dashboards do, Google Analytics can even tell you the amount of time each visitor spends on a particular page, where he entered from and from which page did the visitor leave your website. By simply monitoring this alone, a webmaster or social media marketer could infer from this data about consumer preferences by studying their online behaviour at the designated site. To an eMarketer, this tool provides the ability to conduct A/B testing on websites by creating different items on different pages before running tests to see which page drives traffic.

However, in return for giving you a free but powerful web tool, Google collects the data generated from your website and millions of other websites that run Google Analytics. This process generates billions and billions of consumer information also known as Big Data. This data is then processed on a large scale to become useful information which can then be sold to other enterprises for a decent sum of money.

In a nutshell, Information drives business. Google Analytics generates and processes the data for us, albeit at the cost of some privacy which I am willing to forgo. No wonder they call Google the King of Data.

In my previous post, I shared a link on Twitter about what Twitter can do for individuals. Today, I’m exploring the the use of Twitter for marketing purposes.

With the wonders of Google, I simply typed “How Twitter will Change the Business World” in the search engine and it led me to this page written by Time Magazine: 10 Ways Twitter Will Change the Business World.

In one of its 10 ways listed, This one here drew more interest in me to hover my mouse over it click on it.

According to the 2009 article, Twitter is in a good position to address one of outdoor advertising’s greatest weaknesses: the sheer difficulty of quantifying its effectiveness.

Before the coming of Twitter, billboard advertisements that have caught the eyes of viewers end right there. Period. Few would log on to Facebook or email accounts just to talk about it and this one-way traffic has led to the gradual demise of traditional print advertisements.

However, under 140 characters, Twitter provides a platform for users to indicate that they have seen a print ad while reading a magazine at the salon or while passing by a billboard along the street.

Suddenly, the random billboard or ad squeezed into a random corner of a lifestyle magazine doesn’t seem so random anymore. Tweets about these ads begin finding their way on Twitter and soon enough, conversations arise. Now, we’re seeing two-way traffic. There is now a tangible way to quantify the effectiveness of print ads – tweet and retweet counts from influencers to followers.

Half a decade after this article was published in Time Magazine, we’re now living in the “future” that the author was talking about. Has Twitter really revived the dying print advertising industry?

I certainly believe so.

Photo taken from www.twitter.com

What is Twitter? This can be nicely explained in plain English under 3 minutes.

This was taken off Sam Ng’s blog a few weeks ago. Link to her page can be found here

https://blogs.ubc.ca/samng/

Like her, I downloaded Twitter for the very first time and quite honestly, I had trouble sending out my first Tweet to @JulioVisko to be on the #sauder464 list. Utterly embarrassing, I must admit. This is coming from a Sauder student majoring in Business Technology Management.

As of now, I’m still coming to grasp what it’s real powers are and what it can do for me, not just as an individual but also as a stakeholder of a particular business entity. In my subsequent posts, I will continue to blog about my newfound social media platform so stay tuned!

First blog post for Paul and Julio’s class!

I’m extremely excited to be part of Sauder’s very own eMarketing class this term. It will go down in my transcript as the only higher level Marketing course that I will be taking in my education here at UBC!

In this day and age, living without using any form of social media would be something very difficult to achieve. Some might even consider this Mission Impossible.

So, as my first blog post, I decided to do some simple “Googling” about when did the more well-known social media applications come about. They can’t be summarised better than the picture below:

Source: http://smbp.uwaterloo.ca/2013/03/key-topics-for-the-future-of-social-media/

As it turned out, the first blogs appeared exactly 20 years ago! I’m not sure how many of my classmates were born at that time but I was a 4-year-old toddler then. It’s amazing how we’re still using the most primitive form of social media 20 years after its existence!

Hence this prompts me to ask the next few questions: what does this mean for businesses? How have businesses changed in the last 20 years with respect to the emergence of social media? And what would be the future of businesses as social media platforms continue to evolve and become an inseparable part of our lives as future executives and consumers?

Over the course of these 12 weeks or so, I hope to be able to answer these questions as clearly as I can.