The Importance of Social Media

Nearly everywhere you look, advisers are admonishing us to “like us on facebook”. In many ways, it is quite annoying. Do I really want all of my friends and followers know that I like so-and-so pizza or some brand of clothing? And, while the answer to that may be “no”, the reality is that social media marketing is brilliant. When you consider the piles of money that marketers will put into print, television, or internet marketing, word-of-mouth (or perhaps word-of-click would be more appropriate) marketing via social media is only a fraction of the cost.

And, marketers are no dummies. For effective marketing, the marketer must place the product in front of the potential customers, therefore, the marketer must be aware of where the customer is or is going. Right now, the marketers are placing a lot of attention on social media.

Drew Hendrick on Forbes posted an interesting article titled “3 Ways Social Media is Driving a Business Revolution”. His third, and for this conversation – best, point is that the change in marketing is driven by the customer. Amazingly, the “folks” are pulling the marketing to where they are and marketers are compelled to oblige by this move. Further, even greater that compelling us to purchase some product or other, social media is also being used to pull people toward attitudes and services. You may recall how the 2008 national elections had one party deeply involved with social media resulting in a hammering of the competition. This move was called “revolutionary” and “genius” at the time.

Indeed it was. So no surprise that when you look at what is important to people, the push now is to drive marketing to social media. Emily Holbrook writes in LifeHealthPro.com “Industries such as telecommunications, consumer products and media and entertainment have already harnessed digital to attract and retain new customers. It is time for insurers to evolve and respond” (“Why social media is too important to ignore” http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2014/02/13/why-social-media-is-too-important-to-ignore).

Recently, social media has going through a phase that could be described as “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” and is now using analytics to target specific marketing to specific groups.  If you ever had the thought “hmm, my sister likes [product]. I should give it a try”, you are seeing it in action. Thus, it is critical to understand the demographics of the users of social media so that you can appropriately target your audience. A simple Google or Pinterest (ta-daa) search on “Social Media Demographics” will reveal a ton of hits from people who are very interested in the topic. One fun infographic was published last year Michalis Michael on CareerAddict.com called “Social Media Demographics: Who Uses What?” and is a good start.

As I am in Oregon, how Oregonians are using social media in of importance to me. This year, the Oregon Broadband Advisory Council sponsored a survey of broadband usage across the state. You can find the pdf of the survey here (http://www.oregon4biz.com/The-Oregon-Advantage/Telecommunications/oregon-broadband-council/2014meetings.php). Go to June 26 and click on “Pivot Oregon Survey Presentation”. In the data – which as of this writing continues to be mined – is a huge revelation of not only who is using what, but on what kind of devices people are doing it on. The short answer is this” focus on young people using mobile devices.

No duh.

CyberWatch Updates its Curriculum -- It looks a lot like ours!

If you have been a follower of my blog or series of weekly messages, you will know that much of the foundational curriculum for the MHCC CyberSecurity and Networking (CS&N) degree came from our friends at CyberWatch. CyberWatch, as you may know, was founded back east using some serious grant money from NSA and others with the intention of enhancing the number of cyber security experts via dedicated training in the nation’s community colleges and universities. MHCC has enjoyed this support in terms of training, travel, collaboration (and how), as well as curriculum.

When Paul Morris and I begin building the CS&N degree in 2010 and 2011, the curriculum was in a transition period and some of the direction we all needed was yet to be fully established and there were many unknowns. As a result, Paul and I looked at what we considered would be training appropriate for this yet-to-be-defined career path. And, with the serious input from our industry-based Advisory Committee, we came up with our first degree design with which we have graduated our first cadre of cyber security professionals.

What is most interesting and validating is that CyberWatch has updated their suggested Information Systems Security Curricula and it looks a lot like ours.

[click here to see CW’s curricula page]
[click here to see MHCC’s program of study page]

And there is more. MHCC is again forwarding our security program to include exploding new technologies in mobile device security and VoIP. Keep watching MHCC’s CyberSecurity program and our site Web Page at http://www.occ-sec.com as we continue to grow with this very exciting field.

Epic Fail: Selective Service and MM/DD/YY

Well, apparently in Pennsylvania there was a file transfer of personal records between their Department of Transportation and Selective Service. Then, when it came time for Selective Service to send out the letters demanding enrollment to those men who had not already registered, the clerk culled the database looking for all records with a DOB between '93 and '97.

Unfortunately, the "clerk" did not specify if he wanted eighteen-93 or nineteen-93. As a result, a whole lot of people born in the 1890's received the threat letter from Selective Service. That is, their grandchildren got the letters [!].

Here's the story on Fox: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/11/were-really-sorry-us-sends-14000-draft-notices-to-men-born-in-1800s/

The story is funny and it's not. You see, "we've" known about Y2K issues since the '80s (that is, the nineteen-80's) and significant work had been done to prepare for the event. So, it's bemusing that here we are in the middle of the second decade of the 21st century, and there are still file structures in existence which can succumb to this kind of error. Seriously, this should give all of us pause.

And, while a letter from Selective Service to one of your ancestors might produce a serious "face palm", I'm actually quite glad it was Selective Service who caused the error. Here's why. First, the error demonstrated clearly a vulnerability in the file structure. This is good. You want to expose structural errors whenever possible. And second, there is not much damage that can be done with a draft notice sent to someone 117 years old beyond the clerk's pride and maybe several thousand postage stamps.

Imagine if a similar error was revealed by, oh say, the IRS? or any other agency or business. It could have resulted in serious trouble. But, because it was Selective Service, it did not. And that is also a good thing.

So, as we face what could be the warmest July weekend in nearly a year, we can take a moment to reflect on the poor clerk in some cubicle someplace who will never live this down.

At least they will have a great story to tell for the rest of their lives.