#more accountable and more competitive. It blurred the boundaries between work and life | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

crownworkplace · 2 years ago

Text

Modern Office Spaces – Everything You Need to Know

Walk into any business a few years ago and you’d expect to see a rigid maze of cubicles and desks, supported by the traditional nine-to-five structure. The modern office space is, however, very different and constantly evolving to support a modern workforce; accommodating work-from-home policies, embedding new forms of technology like VR, and fundamentally, providing a space employees want to inhabit.

The future office, particularly in the wake of the Covid pandemic, lies in designing flexible workspaces. It is critical to consider hybrid working policies, employee concerns and the fundamental requirements of the businesses they house from the outset.

It also lies in facilitating those re-designs and ensuring that everything runs smoothly, maintaining business continuity. Whether it’s a re-design of an existing space, a move to a different floor in the same building, or an entire relocation and refit in a new city, our expertise lies in managing the process from end to end.

Three Key Components of The Modern Office Space

When it comes to creating a new office space there are three components businesses need to consider in attracting and retaining talented staff. Crown Workspace has witnessed the shift in the last few years from the traditional office space to one which takes account of employee wellbeing and gives weight to the future and changing uses of buildings. There is a distinct focus, not just on providing an office, but on how to create the best possible environment to ensure employee safety, well-being, and maximize productivity.

A. Focus on Wellness

Wellness is more than just a fashionable trend, it’s fundamental to creating an office space your staff actually want to be in. Businesses are paying more attention to staff wellbeing than ever before because study after study shows a correlation between happiness and productivity. There is an innate understanding that the boundaries between home and work life have become increasingly blurred.

Indeed, this is evident during the hiring process for many companies, with growing numbers of candidates citing the office environment as one of the major attractions. Naturally, there is the more frivolous aspect to it with free bars, games areas and even slides, but on a more serious note it takes a more holistic approach to future office spaces and reflects the positive benefits of investing in employee wellbeing.

As a result, companies are working hard to turn their offices into a destination rather than a mere office, making them an important part of their overall company culture. This is important from an employer branding perspective too, competition for high-quality applicants is only increasing, and a great office space is a big part of that offering.

B. Give Team Members the Freedom to Work Anywhere

Flexible working was a trend long before the pandemic reared its head, although the advent of Covid accelerated the decentralization of many offices. Since then, it has become essential and a key consideration for businesses rather than an optional one. As the pandemic recedes there is a clear trend with three different styles emerging.

There are those businesses that find it essential to have everyone back in the office.

Many businesses are also adopting a hybrid working model where they may spend a few days in the office and a few days working remotely.

Some businesses have moved to a permanent work from home scenario where an office is only required occasionally for collaborative meetings.

C. Support a Wide Variety of Devices

Tech is the third area that’s a key to the modern office space. This can cover everything from the Wi-Fi infrastructure, automated temperature and humidity controls, through to safety measures to ensure employee comfort in a post-pandemic world.

For example, one innovation involves attaching smart sensors outside of meeting room doors, allowing staff outside the room to know how many people are in a room. They can then decide whether they feel comfortable entering.

Reimagine your workspace

Re-designing a workspace or office fit out starts with key stakeholder meetings. Often businesses will understand that what was relevant five years ago no longer fits with current business practices, but an expert view can translate those concerns into tangible moves forward.

Once a plan is agreed upon and in place, it’s a case of dealing with the logistics of moving an office, whether that’s a department of 20 people from one floor to another or a company moving 1000 employees from city to city or anywhere else in the world.

The pandemic has influenced what the modern office space looks like. We spoke to our Workspace experts to find out how.

Demand for Solo and Socially Distant Space

Social distancing may no longer be mandatory in some places but demand for socially distant office spaces still exists. While restrictions are no longer in place in a lot of countries, there is still a move towards “hoteling” of the work environment – greater space between desks, soft furnishing, and plants to add a homely feel but which also subtly put distance between staff. There will be moves to create separation between people without losing the benefits of collaboration and allowing them to work in a safe environment. Socialization is of course crucial for any working environment that wants to win over employees.

Work from Home Will Inspire More Agile Workplaces

Workplaces may shrink because of the pandemic, with people only working in an office part-time which will naturally lead to a reduction in floorspace requirement. Then, it becomes a case of using that workspace effectively for flexible working or collaboration coupled with greater technology to allow for an agile workplace.

Cleanliness Is Automated

Cleanliness has become more relevant than ever and it’s also benefitting from technical innovation. Crown Workspace has worked with clients to install systems which monitor the number of users per workspace and the time between cleans.

Such systems can also provide real-time data on which areas receive the most traffic, examine user density, and send automated messages when a clean is required. Increasingly, the materials used in a modern office space reflect this greater hygiene awareness with walls clad in PVC to create an impenetrable bond to bacteria, for example.

Materials with antiviral and antibacterial properties, like copper and its alloys, are also being installed in areas such as bathrooms and on handles. We should start to examine what are the short and long-term workplace trends in a post-Covid world?

All things considered; we can expect a different workplace than the one we left behind pre-pandemic.

https://crownworkspace.com/knowledge-base/modern-office-spaces-everything-you-need-to-know/

1 note · View note

swifterm · 3 years ago

Text

The belle époque for wine ecommerce

The belle époque for wine ecommerce. We are all now (finally) living in the ‘Golden Age’ of wine online, where the opportunities are enormous for those operators prepared to invest and put digital at the top of their agenda. That was the stand out message from The Buyer, they also cautioned the wine, retail and hospitality sectors about how to make the most of the universal switch to digital and that sales won’t necessarily be there long term without a real understanding of what you are doing online.

The approach to business is very much from the Robert Burns motto on life of fighting back from adversity, not taking no for an answer and keep on pushing for what you think is the right way forward. There are enormous opportunities, if businesses just opened their eyes to the possibilities of investing in digital and data to better understand what they are doing.

This is, quite simply, The Golden Age of wine online, providing we know how to make the most of it and don’t abuse the opportunity we have all been given. Something magical has happened in the wine industry. We are awake to the internet for the first time ever. It’s an amazing time in our life for the internet to allow wineries around the world to connect directly with consumers.

What’s particularly exciting is that the online opportunity is happening for all four cohorts of the wine industry that have combined together for the first to lead this innovation. Consumers, retailers, wineries and wholesalers, all together leaning into digital in a way we have never seen in the history of time. Crucially, though, each key area of trading has come together at the exact time so there is this cumulative gold rush taking place in digital.

The switch to digital is extraordinary and is taking place at an unprecedented rate all around the world. Which, in turn, is having a knock on impact on the way we all behave and act online. We are all now doing things in our personal lives that we would not have thought of 12 months ago – or were even possible to do. Like have a restaurant deliver a full three course meal to enjoy at home. Or, for many, getting used to having your groceries delivered at home.

We have seen video conferencing tools like Zoom become as important to business life as email. The launch of new online chat forums like Clubhouse and the huge impact Tik Tok has had in how we now expect to consume video in mini creative stories. These are not just “popcorn” tools for GenXers, but “we have all migrated and are all using these different platforms”.

The clearest example of just how big the switch to digital has been in the last year has been the enormous rise in sales of wine online. Before Covid-19 online sales accounted for about 2% of an average US winery’s sales. By November that average was up to 10% and is predicted to grow to 20% by 2030, according to Silicon Valley Bank.

Wine.com, one of the biggest US online wine retailers, which had only seen steady but slow growth over it 20 year history, suddenly saw a 119% increase in sales in 2020 on 2019, with 46m visits to it site. They are now succeeding beyond belief. The pandemic has made buying wine online part of the average consumer’s mind set, just as it has grocery shopping. The problem for those wineries and retailers that were not doing online before Covid-19 they are all now “scrambling” to try and catch up.

Even for those that did are finding it hard to keep up with demand and really struggling to formulate and harden the way they are doing business. But even those issues should not dampen any excitement about the key to the online wine world being “unlocked” and we’re all going to get smarter about it.

The switch to online is also blurring the boundaries between the different channels of the trade with more wholesalers now moving into DTC with their own ecommerce platforms like Proof by Southern Glazer’s in the US, and what Berkmann Wine Cellars did in the UK with its consumer platform during the first lockdown.

The hottest jobs in the wine industry are now in digital and e-wholesale. These two categories are unbelievably in demand for any recruiter and needed and necessary and it is hard to find people with any meaningful experience. The top talent in e-wholesale in the US are the ones who are working with top wineries, like E&J Gallo, to manage business with the major online retailers like Drizly, target.com and Instacart. Their primary objective is to work with those online players to see how they can build and extend their wine brands online.

It’s also how they can work together to help consumers find wines in new ways. What’s exciting for the wider wine industry is that the skills and experience that the early adopters in digital and e-wholesale develop will, in time, be shared with the rest of the sector.

Fundamentally what matters in this new way of trading is to query are you just driving more eyeballs to see more wines online, or are you, crucially, selling more cases of wine as a result? The answer is all about the processes being used, the consumer journey from searching to ordering to delivery. How much better can we all get at supporting our customers when they are online?

Time for change

The good news is everyone is re-evaluating what they are doing, and looking at how well their competitive set is performing. This was not happening before. That means wine sellers are trying to do a better job for the consumer, and that is a rising tide that raises everyone’s game.

Things are moving so fast that wine clubs and subscription sites are looking closely at the models they are offering and seeing what new elements and services they can offer, based on what the online market benchmarks are.

There are also new ways to access customers at home, be it tasting packs, predictive personalisation emails, text messaging or even Zoom. It’s now here forever.

The wine business is finally investing in computer management systems and CRM packages to run and automate so much of their back office operations, where the focus is finally how to sell and market wine, rather than how to make and distribute it.

Take personalisation as an example. Using advanced analytics ecommerce tools, like SwiftERM, identify the perfect selection of wines to present to each individual consumer, based on their own unique tastes, rather than lumping them into “a segment” of your database. You need never again see your customer churn increase for lack of personal attention in an ever changing world of wine appreciation. Especially as the individual’s taste matures throughout their lifetime.

Things are actually coming alive. Wineries are learning how to use these sophisticated tools (SwiftERM is 100% automatic – meaning zero human input necessary) and investing more money into them, which fuels innovation and economic growth. That’s amazing for the wine industry which is now coming alive to it’s true potential.

As a result the industry now has so many support networks looking to play their part in helping wine companies grow. Be it booking sites like OpenTable working with wineries, or ecommerce platforms like Shopify opening up online to more smaller wine businesses.

Looking forward wine companies need to be watching social audio closely to see how that develops and whilst Clubhouse, in his view, is not, in his view, the perfect answer, its introduction has seen 35 different social audio platforms launched. Not all of them will survive, but what is has done is show social audio works and it will become part of how we communicate through social media with all the platforms incorporating audio in some way or other.

The next evolution in wine digital will be driven by how well different businesses and platforms are able to use their models and points of difference to acquire more customers and keep them, the next stage in this “golden era”.

All of this is going to fuel additional innovation. All the money that is being invested into the market will create a better way for consumers to buy and interact with wine.

As we learn what works and what doesn’t work – it drives the market forward and for me that is a great moment in time. That’s what the Belle Époque of wine is going to be about. It’s the fact the wine industry has been asleep for so long is now putting its dollars and attention on to something that has been driving other industries for a very long time. The good news is that because we were late to the game a lot of the tools we are able to use are commoditised, and we can build faster. That’s able to happen because of the modern technologies which means we are all going to be better for it.

We hope you enjoyed this article, intended to help improve our client’s profitability. It reflects the care SwiftERM offer, if you need help please ask, we can often help for free. If you haven’t already done so, then please enjoy a FREE month’s trial of our predictive personalisation software on your site, to see how powerful it is.

Here

Other articles of interest below: (Index to all articles here)

#wine #ecommerce #marketing #technology #business

0 notes

wolfliving · 6 years ago

Photo

*Giant Milanese mushroom structures.

Growing a building like a mushroom CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, together with global energy company Eni, has developed an architectural structure made of mushrooms, installed in the center of Milan for Design Week 2019. Grown from soil over the past six weeks – and to be returned to the soil at the end of the month in a fully circular manner – the project is composed of a series of arches, made from a record 1-kilometer-long mycelium. April 9th, 2019 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Hi-res images and more information are available upon request. Please write to [email protected] CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, in partnership with global energy company Eni, has developed an architectural structure made of mushrooms, to be unveiled today at Milan Design Week 2019. The installation, called “The Circular Garden,” was grown from soil over the past six weeks – and will be returned to the soil at the end of the month. It is composed of a series of arches, adding up to a record 1-kilometer-long mycelium, and experiments with sustainable structures that can grow organically and then return to nature in a fully circular way. The project will be showcased during Milan’s Fuorisalone at Brera’s Orto Botanico, the city’s botanical garden. The installation, part of the INTERNI Human Spaces exhibition, will be open to the public from April 9th to 19th 2019. The Circular Garden pushes the boundaries of using mycelium – the fibrous root of mushrooms – in design. In recent years, mycelium has been employed for sustainable packaging and small brick-like objects. The Circular Garden engages with mycelium at the architectural scale – with a series of 60 4-meter-high arches made of mycelium scattered around the Orto Botanico, for a total of 1 kilometer of mushroom. In order to create self-supporting mycelium structures on such a scale, the project takes inspiration from the great Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. It was he, while designing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, who resurrected the “inverted catenary” method pioneered in the 18th-century by polymath Giovanni Poleni. According to this method, the best way to create pure compression structures is to find their form using suspended catenaries and then invert them. The same applies to the Circular Garden, where the catenaries compose a series of four architectural “open rooms” scattered throughout the garden. The mycelium was grown in the two months preceding the opening of the Circular Garden with the help of leading experts in the field of mycology – particularly the Dutch Krown.Bio lab. Spores were injected into organic material to start the growth process. In a similarly organic manner, all the mycelium will be shredded at the end of Milan Design Week and go back to the soil, in a circular way. The cycle is similar to what has happened since ancient times in small town or city gardens, through the production of food and the composting of organic waste. “Nature is a much smarter architect than us,” says Carlo Ratti, founding partner of CRA and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab: “As we continue our collective quest for a more responsive ‘living’ architecture, we will increasingly blur the boundaries between the worlds of the natural and the artificial. What if tomorrow we might be able to program matter to ‘grow a house’ like a plant? Milan’s amazing botanical garden, in the center of the city, seemed the ideal place for such an experiment”. “There’s a whimsical short story written by Italian writer Italo Calvino in the 1960s that tells of the wonder of the urbanite Marcovaldo when he suddenly discovers some mushrooms growing in the middle of the city. During our first visits at the Botanical Garden in Milan, we felt a similar amazement,” comments Saverio Panata, project manager at CRA: “We discovered how many varieties of mushrooms were naturally growing in the garden. After that encounter, we thought that mushrooms, with their adaptability and speed of growth, could become our perfect building material.” Many pavilions designed for temporary exhibitions and fairs – such as for Milan Design Week – end up generating large amounts of waste. The Circular Garden project will be reused in a circular fashion – mushrooms, ropes and wood chips will go back to the soil and small metal elements will be recycled. “Life is more important than architecture,” Oscar Niemeyer famously said, a dictum that is at the center of this year’s theme at the INTERNI Human Spaces exhibition. “It is certainly about human life – but it is also increasingly about the life of our planet, intended in a holistic way,” adds Ratti. CREDITS The Circular Garden A project by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati for Eni Part of “INTERNI Human Spaces” exhibition Artistic Consultancy: Italo Rota CRA Team: Carlo Ratti, Giovanni de Niederhausern, Saverio Panata (project manager), Luca Giacolini, Alessandro Tassinari, Nicola Scaramuzza CRA Make Team: Alessandro Peretti Griva, Carlo Turati, Corrado Castiglioni, Luca Cianfriglia Renderings by CRA graphic team: Gary di Silvio, Gianluca Zimbardi Mycologist consultants: Krown.bio

Photo credits: Marco Beck Peccoz Video credits: Edithink

Where: Milan’s Orto Botanico, Milan, Italy When: April 8th- April 19th, 2019 (h.10:00-22:00)

ABOUT CRA-CARLO RATTI ASSOCIATI CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati is an international design and innovation office, based in Turin, Italy, with branches in New York and London. Drawing on Carlo Ratti’s research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the office is currently involved in many projects across the globe. Embracing every scale of intervention – from furniture to urban planning – the work of the practice focuses on innovation in the built environment. Among recent projects there are the master plan for Milan’s Science, Knowledge and Innovation Park (MIND-Milano Innovation District); a 280-meter tall green skyscraper in Singapore co-designed with BIG; the redesign of the Agnelli Foundation HQ in Turin; the requalification of the Patrick Henry military village for IBA Heidelberg in Germany; the Pankhasari retreat in India’s Darjeeling; and the concept for a human-powered "Navigating Gym" in Paris. CRA is the only design firm whose works have been featured twice in TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year list respectively with the Digital Water Pavilion in 2007 and the Copenhagen Wheel in 2014. In the last years, the office has also been involved in the launch of start-ups, including Makr Shakr, a company producing the world’s first robotic bar system, and Superpedestrian, the producer of the Copenhagen Wheel. www.carloratti.com

ABOUT ENI Eni is an integrated energy company with around 33,000 employees in 71 countries globally. It operates in the oil and natural gas exploration, development and extraction industries in 46 countries; trades in the oil, natural gas, LNG and electricity sectors in 30 countries; and sells fuels and lubricants in 32 countries. It also produces crude oil and semi-finished products to be used in the production of fuels, biofuels, lubricants and chemicals that are then distributed through either the wholesale or retail markets, through various refineries and chemical plants. The company is contributing to the energy transition to a low-carbon future, by promoting the development of energy produced from renewable sources. It is doing so by using new and increasingly efficient clean technologies and by applying the principles of the circular economy to all aspects of its activity. Having completed the transformation of its own business model, which is now more straightforward and faster, with a more efficient value chain, Eni has consolidated its own organic growth across all of its businesses by capitalizing on three main strengths, namely integration, efficiency and use of technology. Technology in particular plays a strategic role in all sectors, helping to achieve global recognition for Eni’s operational excellence, promoting the decarbonization of all of the company’s operations and developing industrial efficiency through the circular economy model. Investing in technology and knowledge has enabled Eni to achieve one of the fastest times to market in its sector, as well as one of the lowest break-even points. From upstream operations to renewables, downstream operations to natural gas, the circular economy to asset management, Eni has managed to differentiate, strengthen and integrate each of its businesses thanks to an operating model that systematizes all of its operations. Integrity when it comes to business management, support for the development of the countries in which we operate, operational excellence in managing the group’s various activities, innovation in the search for competitive solutions and renewable energies, the inclusion of individuals and the promotion of professionalism and expertise, and the taking into account of both financial and non-financial aspects when it comes to business processes and decisions are our drivers to create sustainable value. Eni is working to build a future in which everyone has access to efficient and sustainable energy resources. The Company bases its work on passion and innovation, on its unique strengths and skills, and on the value it places on people whose diversity is considered a resource for all.

ABOUT ENI GAS E LUCE Eni gas e luce, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eni SpA, is a provider of gas, lighting and energy solutions for the retail and business markets. The Company operates in four European countries and has 1,600 employees. With 8 million customers in Italy, it is the leading supplier of natural gas to households, apartment blocks and small businesses, and the second largest supplier of electricity in the free market. Eni gas e luce also has a network of Energy Stores in Italy, with 150 points of sale offering personalized consulting. Since the end of 2016, Eni gas e luce has been present on the energy solution market in partnership with leading companies in their relevant markets, offering a range of energy efficient products and home services beyond gas and energy supply.

ABOUT INTERNI HUMAN SPACES INTERNI, The Magazine of Interiors and Contemporary Design, has been fortunate enough to share the fantastic, adventurous history of the Italian furniture and interior design industries for more than 60 years, closely following the growth that design has been able to express thanks to the work of brilliant cultural figures, architects and designers and brave, intuitive entrepreneurs. INTERNI has, in effect, grown with design, which has spread and infected all of daily life. The magazine has assumed, over time, an increasingly decisive commitment to communicate the culture of design at an international level, promoting new creative alliances between designers, companies, representatives of culture and project operators in the broadest sense, and has developed, under the direction of Gilda Bojardi, a network of parallel publications that have transformed the monthly magazine from niche to mass media. INTERNI continues to be an attentive and up-to-date observatory of the design world and a forerunner of trends in the fields of design and architecture. From the first half of the nineties, the magazine became part of the Mondadori Editore Group, the most important Italian publishing group. The activity of INTERNI also includes the conception and coordination of events and exhibitions, organized in order to facilitate encounters between those who design and those who produce. The themes of experimentation and ephemeral production led, in an effort to broaden the culture of design to the general public, to the events organized in the late 1990s on the occasion of Milano’s FuoriSalone. This famous urban phenomenon that animates the city of Milan during Milan Design Week was born thanks to the initiatives of INTERNI in 1990; the magazine today coordinates the communication of about five hundred events. After the launch of the INTERNI publications in China (2015), the magazine plans to extend the international editions elsewhere.

“HUMAN SPACES” is the title of the much-anticipated exhibition-event conceived INTERNI with the support of the City of Milan, which will take place during the FuoriSalone, from 8 to 19 April, in the courtyards of the University of Milan, at the Orto Botanico di Brera with ENI and at the Audi City Lab at the Arco della Pace. The Mondadori Group magazine, edited by Gilda Bojardi, asked leading protagonist of Italian design, as well as international designers and architects to address the issue of “Human Spaces”, in collaboration with companies, multinationals, start-ups and institutions. The result is an extraordinary collection of installations and design islands, micro-architecture and macro-objects, all site-specific, that interpret the places, landscapes contexts and, by extension, media and objects that place at the center of their vision the wellbeing of people. Consequently, the human being and human needs are back at the center of creative thought for a new quality of life, in harmony with the environment.

CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati® | The Circular Garden press release | April 2019 | [email protected]

#Milan #design #Carlo Ratti #mushrooms

0 notes

fusp-media-sociology · 8 years ago

Text

How the web and media convergence changed our lives

Nowadays we live in a world that is dominated by technology and we are influenced by media in our day-to-day life experience on a regular basis. For this reason it is interesting to understand the impact that the advent of the internet and the media has had on our lives.

The World Wide Web was born in the nineties and it has been evolving since then, going through different phases.

Web 1.0 is the first generation of the web which could be considered the read-only web and also as a system of cognition. Web 1.0 began as an information place for businesses to broadcast their information to people. The early web provided limited user interactions or content contributions and only allowed to search the information and read it. Web 1.0 was static and somewhat mono-directional.

On the other hand, with reading as well as writing, the web could become bi-directional. This is what happened with Web 2.0, which is also known as the people-centric web, participative web, and read-write web. The users of web 2.0 have more interaction with less control. Web 2.0 is not only a new version of web 1.0; Flexible web design, creative reuse, updates, collaborative content creation and modification were facilitated through web 2.0. One of the main features of web 2.0 is to support collaboration and to help gather collective intelligence, all of which was not happening with web 1.0. The main technologies and services of web 2.0 include blogs, wikis, mashups, tags, and some more.

This transition changed not only the tools at our disposal, but also the attitude of the people using them. It generated a participatory culture, where users are stimulated to actively participate in the creation and circulation of new content.

In this context, we can introduce the concept of Convergence culture: “the flow of content across

multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want.” (Jenkins, 2006).

In technology, we are experiencing the digitization of all media content: when words, images and sounds are transformed into digital information, and we can see how brands are trying to join multiple media technologies in one media product, trying to create the perfect machine that is able to perform many different tasks. With the World Wide Web, smartphones, tablet computers, smart televisions, and other digital devices, billions of people are now able to access media content that was once tied to specific communications media (print and broadcast) or platforms (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and cinema). Since a diverse array of content is now being accessed through the same devices, media organizations have developed cross-media content. For example, news organizations no longer simply provide just print or audiovisual content but are portals that make material available in forms such as text, video, and podcasts, as well as providing links to other relevant resources, online access to their archives, and opportunities for users to comment on the story or provide links to relevant material. These developments have transformed journalism by breaching longstanding boundaries—between who is and is not a journalist.

On an economic point of view, companies started to develop an interest in many entertainment fields, such as film, TV, books, games, the internet, music, real estate, etc. They are trying to expand the potential audience and saturate the market by exploiting the original product in many forms of media. The international circulation of media content gives life to a cultural hybridity that shapes the world we live in and the way we approach to life.

Since it has become the most frequent and popular activity in the world, what drives the global convergence and creates this amalgamation of cultures are the social media. In our contemporary digital environment, we no longer feel “objects of communication”, but “subjects of communication”, we play an important role in the spread of information, since we make media ourselves.

We not only are affected by all the information we receive everyday, we become a part of it.

While the Internet has always allowed individuals to participate in media not only as consumers but also as producers, the social aspect of media convergence did not flourish until the 2000s, with the rise of Web 2.0 sites that aimed to be user-focused, decentralized, and able to change over time as users modified them through ongoing participation. Social media make it possible for everyone in the network to be simultaneously producer, distributor, and consumer of content. Their power comes from the connections between its users.

”Social media and social software are tools that increase our ability to share, to co-operate, with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutional institutions and organizations.” (Shirky 2008)

One way that professional media has engaged with media convergence is through transmedia storytelling, in which stories are told across multiple platforms. Although it is intimately connected to brands and franchises being spread across media by corporate conglomerates (e.g., Star Wars, The Matrix, Harry Potter, various Disney franchises), it does not simply refer to the adaptation of content from one platform to another (e.g., films and film characters providing the basis for toys and games). Rather, as Spanish media scholar Carlos Scolari has observed, transmedia storytelling “is a particular narrative structure that expands through both different languages (verbal, iconic, etc.) and media (cinema, comics, television, video games, etc.).” While transmedia storytelling can be a source of brand extension for media corporations, and hence further revenues and profits from reaching new audiences and selling more products, it has also functioned as a form of fan engagement with particular media content as they put together a richer and more complex narrative around it.

One question that needs to be asked, however, is whether or not these recent developments are beneficial for the society and the industry itself. In other words, whether or not media convergence presents more opportunities than challenges to both media producers and consumers. Consequences of this trend can be viewed as both positive and negative. On the one hand, it may cause the decline in the diversity of material offered and result in a tendency that voices of those lacking economic power will not be taken into account (Branston et al., 2008:179). On the other hand, it is argued that market driven media owned and controlled by big media corporations ‘can actually improve the value of the service, the flexibility of topics and the competence of the contributors as well as enable technological developments, change the elitism of media professionals and create new general awareness (Grant, 2009). Another aspect of media convergence that can be seen as its major drawback is what Jenkins (2006:23) calls the ‘participation gap’. This concept refers to the fact that while media convergence in general has encouraged audiences to participate in the process of content creation, it requires extended access to modern technologies, familiarity with the new forms of media, as well as developing certain skills (ibid.). As a result, certain segments of the audience arguably remain neglected and unable to fully participate in the new media culture.

Media convergence and social media are also benefitting the rise of the so-called Collective Intelligence, the shared or group knowledge that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals. A portal like Wikipedia, for example, is the result of the work of many people from all over the world, sharing information and putting them at the disposal of everyone. Google is another example of collective intelligence. But this can bring also some difficulties: audiences complain about information overload, and the rapidly changing technology makes it hard to keep track of it. So will an audience so used to traditional forms of media embrace a new way of receiving information?

Another phenomenon brought by the media convergence is the blurring of the public and private sphere. In fact, nowadays we can distinguish between “publicly private” when users share private identity information through media, therefore in a public platform, and “privately public”, when users make connections with many other people, while being relatively private with regard to sharing identity information.

Media convergence and the rise of Internet and social media have had a critical impact on the way we manage our lives and it will forever be this way. The beauty of it is that it keeps evolving, technology can make our lives easier and more comfortable in everyday situations, the challenge is to keep track of it and stay connected all the time. It’s up to us to decide if we want to control the machine or not.

#internet #Social media #convergence #collective intelligence

1 note · View note

nutzo0001 · 2 years ago

Text

Bing AI BlogPost

*Write about* "1995-2007 futures are gone for us now"

The year is 2023 and we are living in a world that is radically different from what we imagined in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The internet boom, the dot-com bubble, the rise of social media, the advent of smartphones and tablets, the emergence of artificial intelligence and biotechnology, the globalization and digitalization of everything - all these trends have shaped our lives in ways that we could not have predicted or prepared for.

But what about the futures that we dreamed of back then? The futures that were promised to us by science fiction, by visionary thinkers, by optimistic entrepreneurs? The futures that we hoped for, that we worked for, that we invested in? Where are they now?

In this blog post, I will explore some of the futures that we lost in the past two decades and why they did not materialize. I will also reflect on what we can learn from them and how we can create new futures that are more realistic, more sustainable and more desirable.

The Future of Work

One of the futures that we envisioned in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the future of work. We imagined that the internet would enable us to work from anywhere, anytime, with anyone. We imagined that we would have more flexibility, more autonomy, more creativity and more productivity. We imagined that we would be able to pursue our passions, our talents and our interests without being constrained by geography, time zones or corporate hierarchies.

But what happened instead? The internet did not liberate us from work; it intensified it. It made us more connected, more accessible, more accountable and more competitive. It blurred the boundaries between work and life, between professional and personal, between public and private. It created new forms of stress, anxiety, burnout and isolation. It also created new forms of inequality, exploitation and precarity. It disrupted many industries, sectors and professions, displacing millions of workers and creating new skills gaps and labor shortages.

The future of work that we dreamed of is gone for us now. We need to rethink how we work in the digital age, how we balance our needs and aspirations with our responsibilities and obligations, how we collaborate and communicate with our colleagues and clients, how we learn and adapt to changing demands and opportunities.

The Future of Education

Another future that we envisioned in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the future of education. We imagined that the internet would enable us to access unlimited information, knowledge and wisdom from anywhere, anytime, with anyone. We imagined that we would have more choice, more diversity, more quality and more affordability. We imagined that we would be able to learn anything, anytime, anywhere, at our own pace and style.

But what happened instead? The internet did not democratize education; it commodified it. It made us more dependent on standardized tests, rankings, credentials and certificates. It made us more vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. It made us more passive consumers of content rather than active creators of meaning. It also made us more isolated learners rather than engaged participants in communities of practice.

The future of education that we dreamed of is gone for us now. We need to rethink how we learn in the digital age, how we curate our sources of information, how we evaluate our sources of knowledge, how we apply our sources of wisdom, how we share our sources of inspiration.

#ai blog post writer

2 notes · View notes

advxjennie-blog · 8 years ago

Text

the games we play: solo!

Months.

Of reconnaissance. Of dressing up and dressing down to fit the backdrop of her gamers’ lives. Of rewiring personalities to become someone she’s not, but to fit the ideals of someone she longs to kill. Of smiling till her cheeks hurt, even though the bitter taste of contempt is present on her tongue. Of being stoic and hiding the effervescent joy that her late father so loves her for. Of being touched even when it’s the last thing she wants. Of pretending it’s the very thing she wants. Of having to bite her tongue and endure the odd looks like she’s not affected by it in the slightest—because such is her in-your-face behaviour, so she must be comfortable with the judgement that comes with it, right? Of being screamed at due to her persistence. Of running back to the drawing board as she blocks out all emotion of sadness and disappointment, because all she has endured may very well have been for nothing. Of never giving up regardless.

Weeks.

Of sleepless nights and blocking the release of melatonin—the hormone responsible for tiredness—released by the pineal gland. Of cans upon cans of energy drinks and an uncountable number of coffee cups of different shapes and sizes. Of cracking codes. Of breaking through the defences of anything from military databases and police files, to social media accounts. Of having to read through every painful conversation and looking at the occasional scandalous pictures, in hopes of finding that one piece of information she can use to end this suffering and move on to the next. Of having those pieces of information escape her. Of having her days and nights blur into a single moment: her, sitting at her cluttered desk as she forces the sleep out of her eyes and blink away the tears caused by the bright laptop screen. Of having to start again.

Days.

Of planning. Of dissecting the mysteries that are her gamers’ personalities. Of trying to figure out the boundaries of their comfort zone, and trying to figure out how to push them past it. Of guessing what they’re willing to do and what they’re not, and of how suspicious they are. Of tailoring tasks that are unique to their skill set, courage and respect for the justice system. Of having to piece everything together perfectly, because she is about to tangle her gamers’ lives together intricately, and if one rope happens to be faulty, the whole system collapses. Of finally avenging her father. Of finally taking revenge on her mother.

It all ends here.

Here is a boy with adventure written into his genetic code. There is an insatiable lust erupting within him that longs for adrenaline to pour under his flesh, an unexplainable need for the spark of life to run through his veins. If there is ever a man who would choose to live out of suitcases and in the snug economy seats of a budget airline in place of living in an extravagant mansion and lying on silk sheets and beds that are unnecessarily large, it would be Kiwoon. But the thing about him is neither the former nor the latter is an option: because on days when he is not off chasing the stars, he is scrubbing floors and washing dishes in a local diner.

He is the embodiment of peaks and troughs living a life of flat-line, and God, all he longs for is to escape.

And so he fills his idle moments with activities that trigger the release of adrenaline. It starts oh, so very vanilla: walking up to a pretty girl to ask for her number, or joining the local dance competition. But very gradually, it turns much, much darker: grabbing anything he can from the local mart and hiding the items under his jacket, jacking a parked car to test its control and acceleration and attempting to put it back with none the wiser. It is as though he starts to get used to the activities that once charged his bones with electricity, starts to see them as simply another part of his monotonous life, and so he begins to look for more dangerous, adrenaline-triggering things to do, and oh, how slippery he finds the slope. His heart sings when he partakes in activities that are decidedly bad, and although his mind is plagued by guilt and regret, it does little to stop his fingers from shaking as they itch to feel the smooth texture of a leader-covered steering wheel of a car his bank account most certainly cannot afford.

His reckoning comes in the form of a series of joyful pings from his phone while he’s busy at work, and he quickly steals a glance at the texts—surely his boss wouldn’t mind this much—but what he sees sends his phone falling to the ground due to a loosened grip and the forces of gravity. Because in it are video footages from hidden security cameras of him stealing from the local mart, as well as him breaking into a moderately priced car. It seems odd for the guards watching the security footage to have missed all of this, but perhaps it is because they had been oddly deleted, as though someone wishes to save him from the police only to exercise justice in their own, special way.

[private number] I wonder what mommy and daddy would think if their baby boy went to jail?

[private number] Maybe you shouldn’t have been so chatty with the regulars at the diner.

[private number] Wait for my instruction! xoxo

His eyes dart to the many customers in the diner as though afraid someone had caught him, and if he’s noted the ‘regulars’ comment, he doesn’t bother wondering which as he has bigger problems to deal with. He’s quick to pick up his phone, drop it into his pocket and pretend like he is not phased, but the sweat that breaks out on his forehead and the permanent wrinkle between his eyebrows betray his countenance.

He is awaken by the next text that comes in the middle of the night.

[private number] Knock, knock! You ready, Woonie?

[private number] Let’s go on a ride! Get dressed and be at the nearest convenience store in twenty minutes.

[private number] Might be smart for you to wear all black today. A hoodie would be good! Also maybe one of those surgical masks you use as fashion statements.

Perhaps he is angered from being rudely awaken, or perhaps he is just angered by the blackmail in general, because he is quick to slam a reply that consists mostly of cursing and threats. But he doesn’t get a reply back, and because he is truly, truly afraid of going to jail—or of having to force his parents to pay a fine when they’re already struggling as is—he decides to do as the texts say.

When he gets there, the first thing he does is scan the store for his perpetrator. Unfortunately, all he sees are two cops chatting over an early breakfast of cup ramen. Kiwoon pretends to be busy deliberating over candy bars when really, he just longs for his phone to ring so he can get this nightmare over and done with. And then, he’ll never steal again; this is enough adrenaline to last him a damn lifetime.

The phrase ‘speak of the devil and he doth appear’ proves itself to be true when his phone rings just as he had wanted it to before, but now that his wish has bled into reality, he finds that it is not as satisfying as he had imagined it to be. Still, he fumbles with his phone before reading the texts.

[private number] You’re early… I’m really impressed!

[private number] Anyway, you still know how to jack a car, yeah?

[private number] Show me. Black hummer parked on the far right. It’s the only car in the parking lot.

[private number] Sorry I didn’t tell you to bring your equipment. I forgot. Maybe. :P

[private number] But the good news is there are a lot of rocks! You can break the window.

When the police are this close? The person must not be aware of the situation. He texts his concerns, but he gets a simple ‘:/’ emoticon in return. What the hell could that possibly mean? After five minutes of waiting for another text, he decides to leave the store and check the car out, just in case.

The car is a beauty, there is no denying it. As his eyes land on the silver of light made by the reflection of the sleek, gloss finish, Kiwoon’s hands begin to tremble. Fingers reach out to caress the side mirror in adoration, and he belatedly pulls himself back and reaches for his phone in hopes of finding a new series of text messages that he may have missed in his haze. What he gets instead makes his heart sing, but his teeth grit in frustration.

[private number] Pick a rock for your favourite girl. I happen to like the big, sparkly ones, just FYI.

So it’s a girl; he guessed as much from her use of x’s and o’s. His mind spins as he thinks of what he could possibly do with this information, but agitation grows when he finds that he can do absolutely nothing, and so a succession of slamming the side of his fist against his forehead in frustration follows. But Kiwoon has no time to think: the cops are in the store, and they could be done with their ramen and chatter at any moment. And so he grabs a rock the size of his palm and slams it repeatedly against the window. The window shatters shortly after the alarm blares, and Kiwoon hops into the driver’s seat and reaches for the wires hidden beneath the plastic cover of the steering column. The addictive hum of the engine starting causes a wild, euphoric smile to pull on his lips, but the mood is ruined by shouts that he later realises are coming from the two cops whom have since left the store, and so Kiwoon steps on the gas and escapes with the car.

He’s driving on some small road, a large smile plastered on his lips in response to the rapid beating of his heart against chest that he is so desperately addicted to, and he is so taken with joy that the ringing of his phone does not dampen his mood. He parks on the side of the road and unlocks his phone hastily.

[private number] That was impressive! You’re so cool!

[private number] Drive the car to the address attached and leave it near the front door.

[private number] Leave the door unlocked and the engine running.

[private number] No time for sleep, sorry. :( You have a big day ahead of you!

His heart falls at the text. He’s done everything she’s asked for; is it too much to ask for her to let him go now? He types up a series of texts conveying his anger and brokenness, but he is greeted only with silence. Dejected, Kiwoon slowly drives the car towards the given destination. He’ll deal with everything else later.

There was once a girl with galaxies in her eyes. Her soft kisses could turn beast into man, her innocent heart making a sinner fall to his knees in awe and repentance. And perhaps her alluring nature has sparked the jealousy of the snakes she calls her friends, because they bare fangs that are sheathed with layers upon layers of lethal venom, and they poise to strike. It starts small: in place of Yeonjoo, they call her ‘piggy’, their thin fingers pulling back the tips of their noses as they snort in mockery. And it escalates: they catch her off guard by pinching her belly, they point and laugh, they push her down until her knees are scraped and her tears fall to the ground. It all hurts the same.

They tell her that she is ugly, and that no one is capable of loving her, and she starts to believe it; but what she doesn’t realise is that if she’d only see her true worth, she’d see that there are fairy-tales written of her, and in those stories, her love is the treasure below the x, the ethereal princess guarded by a menacing fire-breathing dragon, and still, it would not deter the many who would fight for and gladly die for her affection. But as she stares at her reflection, all she sees are their shallow words that, beneath the veil, lies jealousy in its rawest form. As she stares bitterly at the girl she so loathes in the mirror, she finds that she becomes her worst critic, and she morphs into the very girls who crush her spirit—the very villains of her fairy-tales.

In the vacuum of space, a star burns out.

Here is a girl with heavenly lips and an angelic face; but do not be deceived by her cherubic appearance, for she snarls and snaps at anyone who dares approach her. She is venomous tongue and biting words, and she has black holes for eyes that whisper a tale of once having brilliant stars beneath her flesh, stars that have since died and in its place, lies a petrifying vacuum that swallows men whole and leaves only their shell behind. Through secretive surgeries, Yeonjoo has now attained the shell she has always wanted, but she has lost the person she had desired to be in the process.

She blames her success—or perhaps, is it her downfall? The lines are awfully blurred—on fat camp, and she spits on all the girls who once laughed at the numbers that show up on the scale she steps on. Oh, look at her now, as her sharp heels leaves holes in the hearts of men and women alike. But she has never truly escaped the villains of her story, has she? For still, she keeps them in her presence, and still, she secretly and oh, so desperately longs for their approval. (As she looks in the mirror, the person that looks back is not her, but them.)

And that is the cause for the rapid tattoo on her chest, the gasping for breath and the way her arms reach out for something to hold as she attempts to steady herself. Because there, in her phone, lies the evidence that her rapid weight loss had been the work of doctors rather than trainers—information she was promised would never see the light of day—and there, in her inbox, lies a series of messages:

[private number] Would be such a shame if this got out and your posse hears about it, no?

[private number] This is what you get for playing nice with your stupid ex-neighbour, Kim Jinyoung.

[private number] Wait for my instruction! xoxo

And like a wilted flower, Yeonjoo falls to the ground in heaving sobs.

[private number] Morning, Yeonnie! Are you ready?

[private number] There’s a black hummer waiting for you outside. The door is unlocked and the engine is running.

[private number] Drive it to the next street and park in the third bay of the closest gas station.

[private number] You’ll be picking up a passenger. He’ll come to you, so all you have to do is wait!

With shaky fingers and trembling knees, Yeonjoo drags her weight to the car parked in front of her house, the low hum of the engine confirming that the text messages, unfortunately, hold no lie. The way in which she hurriedly runs towards the driver’s seat shows her desperate want to quickly get this over and done with, but the broken window that she’s first greeted with momentarily slows her pace. Slim fingers comb through her hair in disbelief as her vision begins to cloud from the tears that surface, but Yeonjoo bites her lip and pulls her hoodie further towards the front, determined to just hurry up so she can wash her hands of all this mess. She quickly slips into the driver’s seat of the car, and the other thing that catches her attention is a black, square object with a blinking red light stuck to the dashboard. If she had any suspicions that it was anything other than a camera, the confusion is quickly cleared by the loud ping of her phone.

[private number] Stop looking so glum! Smile for the camera, won’t ya? :D

An unfitting scowl graces her cherry lips, and her thumbs slam against the screen as she conjures up a reply, but as she catches sight of all her previous inquiries and pleads to leave her alone from the night before—all of which have been left unanswered—she decides that it would be wise for her to save her breath and just drive. Besides, all she has to do is pick up a passenger, yes? It shouldn’t be too hard, she reasons.

(But oh, is she in for a surprise.)

Jaesuk is a snake. There are no other words to describe him.

Perhaps there is a mistake in his genetic code, because disloyalty seems to be etched deep in his bones, and for the life of him, he cannot think about anything other than his own benefit. But he has a small mind, so he does not have the capacity to think so far into the future, and that is how he ends up angering many, many trigger happy individuals who act as though they have been given the license to kill.

Unfortunately, their weapons are all aimed at the same spot between his eyes.

But regardless of being dense, like a snake, Jaesuk’s key trait must be that he’s slippery, because he seems to be able to evade their shots and hide in places that no one would ever find him. He slithers into holes and hides between bushes, and when he thinks it is safe, he comes out yet again and hunts for his next prey.

Perhaps in an alternate universe, Jaesuk could change. Perhaps he could build friendships and strike alliances if he were only tamed into submission; but as of yet, he is like a child that has been spared the rod, and so now he is spoilt rotten. What use is it to change the only way he knows how to live, when he proves, time and again, that it is the best lifestyle for him to have?

(As said, Jaesuk is hardly the most intellectual, because as he foolishly tempts fate with rhetorical questions, he’ll find that fate always has unlikely answers.)

Like clockwork, at eight o’clock on a Tuesday night, Jaesuk stands in front of the window of an electronic shop with a cold drink in his hand, eagerly waiting for his favourite program to air on the many different televisions in front of him. What greets him instead is a nightmare in the form of a series of footages all staring a very familiar reptile.

There he is, slipping into his favourite hidey hole that he visits thrice a month. And there he is, slithering through the crowd and into the darkest alley of Incheon, so dark that no one—not even criminals—dares to enter. (Jaesuk had spread enough rumours of that place to keep everyone out, but it seems that his efforts are all for naught, for there it is on the screen for all of South Korea to see.) And there he is, walking towards his favourite struggling restaurant that only ever holds three customers at once. And there he is, there he is, there he is, at all his favourite hideouts that he had been so sure no one knew about.

The shrill tone emitted from his phone scares him half to death, and during that brief distraction, the screen cuts back to his favourite program, and his eyes meet with his favourite actress as she cries about a love lost. Tears build up in his eyes as well, but for entirely different reasons.

[private number] Did anyone tell you you sucked at hide and seek? Because you really do.

[private number] Relax! It wasn’t on national TV. Just on those TVs. You’re welcome!

[private number] It will be aired nationwide, though. Be sure to catch it at 8pm on Tuesday! Sorry for ruining your favourite broadcast again, oops.

[private number] You can get out of it, though. Just turn up to the Citibank across the street next Tuesday at 10am. Bring your gun and a hat. Maybe some sunglasses. Oh, also a duffel bag might be handy.

[private number] …yup. That’s exactly what it sounds like, Sukkie. :(

[private number] Probably should’ve kept your hands to yourself, and definitely off that old hag, Kim Jinyoung.

[private number] Wait for my instruction! xoxo

Jinyoung? Who the fuck is that? From the message, Jaesuk suspects it’s one of his one night stands, and if he ever sees that woman again, he’d kill her. But God, he has absolutely no idea what she looks like, for the women he shares his nights with have all blended together to make an unidentifiable face.

But whatever; none of that matters, because he’s not going to do it. To think that someone could threaten him—him, the person who has more lives than a damn feline—is laughable. So his old spots have been revealed: bad luck, but that simply means he’ll have to find new hideouts. Jaesuk texts a simple ‘fuck you’, throws both his drink and phone into the bin closest to him and leaves before his favourite broadcast is over. He’s lost the mood and besides, it seems he needs the time to look for a new spot to sleep tonight.

He’s lying on an old, springy mattress in the middle of some abandoned building when the bullet hits his shoulder. Screams of agony echoes through the room, but Jaesuk knows that if he were to cave to his want to lie down and baby himself, he’ll die. And so he bites his lip and roars as he pulls himself up and runs to take cover, his hand wet as he rests it on top of the wound in a lousy attempt to slow the bleeding.

A fucking sniper; and he already has a good idea of who the bullet belongs to. Why, it had been twenty years ago when he made nice with Jeongah, a girl with a penchant for falling in love: first with weapons, and then with him. But what she does not understand is Jaesuk does not make connections, he makes scapegoats; and so he had charmed her into taking a leap of faith with him, but as she jumped, she had belatedly noticed that his own feet did not leave the ground.

He left with the money, and she was left with the blame.

But now she’s back with a vengeance it seems, because there is a bullet lodged in his bone.

(And how does he know it’s her?)

It’s simple, really. Jaesuk had been drawn to her all those years ago because of it. The thing is, Jeongah is the type of girl who loves a challenge, and so she had always found sniping at a stationary target boring and frankly, thoroughly unfair for her victim. This is the reason why her first shot is always non-fatal, despite being known to never miss: it’s purely because the first shot gets them running and then, that’s when the game really starts. Well that, and because she’s the only sniper with a reasonable excuse to want him dead.

Jaesuk knows it is imperative that he leaves before she takes her second shot, because if she does, it’ll be his head. He knows in his heart that there is a small chance of survival, but still, he grips his shoulder a little tighter as he prepares to make a run for it. But just as he’s about to stand, his new phone blares.

Really?

Still, he is safe where he sits now, and he knows the second he moves will most definitely be his last. So he stalls and prays for a miracle, and then he pulls his phone out and quickly scans over the text messages.

[private number] I really have to hold you at gunpoint, huh?

[private number] Jeongah really wanted to kill you, but I’m holding something juicy over her head.

[private number] Did you know she had a son!? :o

[private number] Anyway! Tuesday, 10am. Yes or no?

Yes. Yes. Fucking yes. Blood is smeared onto the screen as he hastily types in the reply. He receives a response instantly.

[private number] Great! That wasn’t so hard, was it?

[private number] I’ve put her leash back on. You can let your guard down! Best take care of that arm before the big day. She tells me it’s rather bad.

Slowly and cautiously, he stands and turns to look behind him, just in time to see the menacing figure of Jeongah standing on the roof, a sniper rifle lax in her hand.

[private number] You ready, big boy?

[private number] There’ll be a black hummer waiting for you in the gas station beside the bank. Third bay.

[private number] Good luck!

The scowl plastered on his face is hidden by the surgical mask he wears. Fingers fly to the bandaged gunshot wound as it throbs beneath his clothes, and he allows himself one deep breath before paying no heed to the pain altogether. This should be quick and easy, he thinks; he’s done this once before, so it really shouldn’t be any different from the last time, right?

Without further ado, he pushes past the glass doors, pulls the gun out from under his jacket and fires at the ceiling.

Yeonjoo startles when the door on the passenger side opens, and when she catches sight of the gun in his hand, her soft lips part as a scream threatens to spill from her lips. But he had already seen what she had looked like through the broken window—had seen her fidget, her looking around nervously like a damn gazelle—and so he aims the gun directly at her forehead and screams for her to “just drive, Goddamnit, or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” and so she hurriedly steps on the gas and leaves skid marks where the car was once parked.

She sobs uncontrollably as she drives, pleads spilling pathetically from her lips as she struggles to keep the car moving at a consistent pace. It is clear to all that she is just a child with not a bad bone in her body, and so Jaesuk sighs audibly as he puts the gun away. And then come the plethora of questions that has him reaching for his gun again, if only to get her to shut up.

“W-Did you just rob the bank? Why are you— Wh— Why is this happening to me, oh God—”

He blocks it all out and instead, unlocks his phone to read the new message.

[private number] Good job! I’m so sorry you have to deal with Yeonjoo.

[private number] Anyway, I’ve attached the address to drop the money.

[private number] Leave the gun in the car and bring Yeonjoo with you.

[private number] I’ll be meeting you guys there!

[private number] Also, I can see you from the camera. So no funny business! Leave the gun, or Jeongah’ll pay you a visit very shortly.

There is fire in his eyes as they dart up and scan the car for a camera, and his jaw locks upon realising that it’s on the dashboard, right in front of the sobbing mess of a girl. In his anger, he carelessly attempts to reach for the camera for the sole purpose of yanking it off and destroying it, but the wound begins to throb at his hasty movements, and so he is forced back into seat. Of course, another consequence of his sudden movements is a scream coming from the girl in the driver’s seat, and it has him rolling his eyes so far back, they begin to hurt.

“Would you just shut up, for the love of God—” he pleads, but it only invites louder sobs. He gives up altogether and decides instead to gruffly pass his phone to Yeonjoo. It takes her a few seconds to finally take it from his grasp.

“T-there? They want me to drive you there?” she asks between hiccups, a hand reaching up to wipe the tears from her cheeks with her sleeves.

“They wants you to drive us there.”

And the sobbing returns with full force.

Yeonjoo had always believed she coped well with stress, but today is the day she finds out that she most absolutely does not. She doesn’t mean to be such a cry-baby, really, but try as she might, the tears keep coming. And now, the hardened bank robber who previously held her at gunpoint wants her to follow him past some trees and into what seems to be a damn forest. She’s watched enough movies to know how this ends up.

“I— please, please don’t do this! I won’t tell anyone, I promise, just please, please let me go, please—”

The gun is aimed at her once again, and Yeonjoo flinches and cowers at the sight.

“I will kill you if you don’t get out of the car right now,” Jaesuk threatens through grinding teeth, “I’d go by my damn self—I don’t need some deadweight who only knows how to cry and beg—but they said you had to follow me, so stop fucking around!”

Yeonjoo holds her face in her hands. With eyes shut, she barely whispers words of comfort and tells herself that this is not happening, that she’s somewhere else, that this is all a dream—

She feels the cold rim of his gun touch her forehead, and an embarrassing sob spills from her lips.

“Get. Out. Now. I’ll count to ten, and then I’ll blow your fucking brains all over this car! Just fucking get out!”

Please wake up, please wake up, please wake up—

Her hands fly up in surrender, and her eyes stay permanently on the ground as she clumsily falls from the safety of the car. Her legs tremble as they struggle to keep her up, and when she finally gathers the courage to look up, she sees him slamming the door shut and throwing the gun into the car through the broken window. She feels a heavy burden lift from her chest, but she is plagued with confusion.

“Why—”

He doesn’t let her finish her sentence, merely pushes her forward harshly, and she stumbles as she attempts to steady herself. They quietly walk past the trees and what seems like forever is really only a few steps, and then they arrive at a clearing. There is a lone figure that greets them.

The person turns towards the direction of footsteps and the ruffling of leaves, but Jaesuk does not give them time to do any more before he lunges, one hand wrapping around their neck to choke them. Yeonjoo screams yet again as the two fall and roll around the grass, and the situation is so catastrophic that they fail to notice the whirring of a drone camera fast approaching.

“Starting early, I see!” the voice blares from the speaker taped to the drone, and it’s enough to halt the struggle between the two men, “I like it!”

A maniacal cackle follows, and if it wasn’t obvious who the real culprit was, it is now.

“Welcome, welcome, to the game of life! As you can see, Jaesuk is carrying a black bag with lots of cash, and today, one of you will be the lucky winner!” she sings in an inappropriately cheery voice, and it causes wrinkles to form between Kiwoon’s and Jaesuk’s eyebrows—not Yeonjoo, though, she’s still sobbing and using her sleeves to dry her never-ending tears, “the rules are simple: kill, or be killed. The last one standing gets the gold! So don’t say I never reward good behaviour! You have 20 minutes to beat each other to the pulp, and if there’s more than one of you alive by the end of it, I’m afraid I’m going to have to publish all those dirty, nasty things you’re trying so hard to hide. So if you’re thinking of holding back, don’t—”

“Just fucking post it! Tell them! I don’t care! Just let me go, you bitch—” the scream grates against Yeonjoo’s sore throat after having gathered enough courage to fight back.

Jennie growls in anger at the rude intrusion, but she gives herself a second to calm down before she replies in a comforting tone that is very obviously fake, “Yeonnie, dear. Oh honey, you were an accessory to a bank robbery! Remember the camera? I have all the footage I need to send your cute butt to jail! You don’t want to go to jail… do you?”

A loud sob follows.

“I figured as much! Anyway, let’s not waste any more time. Now, Jaesuk and Kiwoon, please get off of each other; we want a fair fight, alright? Surprise elements are a no-no!” Jennie chastises, before once again getting back on track, “anyway, without further ado, the game starts in 3, 2, 1. Your twenty minutes start now!”

Kiwoon clenches his hands into fists and brings them up as he assumes a Southpaw stance, but the trembling of his lips and the rapid blinking of his eyes as he fights his tears reveal that he is not at all skilled in fighting. Adrenaline flows through his veins, but as he readies to fight for his life, he wonders why any of it ever mattered so much.

Bloodied hands reach to grab the black duffel bag on the ground. His eyes are reduced into thin slits, swollen and bruised from receiving punches. A small chuckle escapes his lips as the words, ‘you should see the other guy’ flies past his mind, but the chuckle slowly morphs into a whimper, and his once confident stance now melts to the ground gracelessly.

He hears the sound of police sirens through his heaving sobs, and what follows are thunderous footsteps and a shout, “freeze! Hands in the air where I can see ‘em!”

Kiwoon doesn’t struggle.

They say that he was so tired of his life, of being poor, and he was so desperate to turn his situation around that he resorted to going above the law and taking what he needed forcefully. A quick fix. They say he was the mastermind behind it all: that he had found unlikely alliances with a wanted criminal and a beauty queen, and that he wasn’t willing to split the money three ways, so he murdered them all in cold blood once they had done most of the dirty work for him. They say that he was an adrenaline junkie, and this was his biggest rush yet. Some try to put themselves in his shoes and say that he did all this for his sick mother and struggling father—that he was desperate to get her the help she needed but could not afford—and others counter, “but at what price?”

The media paints him in a tragic light, a victim of circumstance, and the masses criticise the news stations for glorifying a murderer. Some praise the media for being able to read between the lines. There are mixed reviews, but whatever the verdict is, time goes on, and soon, everyone forgets about a friendly guy who once worked in a rundown diner, who had monsters dancing underneath his skin. Instead, they talk about how scandalous a dress a certain actress donned on the red carpet, or speculate how accurate it was for a certain high profile CEO to be accused of embezzlement.

(And as for the phones? The text messages? The evidence of another possible explanation? Why, they cease to exist, because Jennie has already hacked into phone companies and deleted any archives kept.)

Everyone forgets, but Jennie always remembers. A sinister smirk graces her lips as she stores the video recording of the fight—of her games—onto a disc, and she places it on the shelf beside the many others. Just in case she ever finds herself bored, and is ever in the mood to relive her success.

She clears her desk of the empty cans of energy drinks, coffee cups, and shreds the many documents she has on her deceased gamers and she burns the evidence. And then she fills her empty desk with new energy drinks, full coffee cups, and her printer once again gets to work as she prints documents upon documents of information on her newest victims.

Today has passed, and dawn breaks, signifying the arrival of a new tomorrow.

#s: the games we play #tw: manipulation #tw: bullying #tw: murder #tw: intimidation #tw: swearing #tw: blood #tw: just... jennie #( ho l y fuck i spent the entire week working on this #6.1k words fuck me up #also in case anyone was wondering how her games worked #this is a v watered down version of it #i imagined it to be more complicated and w more gamers but li s te n #i am not writing anymore im sr y )

9 notes · View notes

contemporaryartctca · 5 years ago

Text

Business Studies Week 3: Task 3

Managing Up

Authoritarian management appears very strict and maintain strong boundaries between their employees. They expect things to be done at a certain time and are motivated to being as effective as possible. Often, they monitor their employees very closely.

To effectively work with authoritarian managers, it is crucial to meet deadlines and be punctual. Good, consistent work ethic is beneficial. Setting relatively attainable expectations of myself will aid in creating a positive attitude and self- motivation. I would potentially feel rather intimidated by authoritarian managers. Hence, it is important to note that they also have personal or emotional matters so empathy is created towards their rigid management style. This will make it easier for myself to approach them.

Visionary management often steers a team towards a high standard goal. They have extreme expectations and very drastic ideas. It can create a very positive and motivating atmosphere for employees. However, visionary managers need to be reminded to set attainable expectations (to avoid failure to meet a deadline or going over budget).

In order to work effectively under visionary management, I think it is important to remind oneself that everyone is equal towards meeting a deadline (even if the task at hand seems demanding or challenging). Furthermore, being confident enough to approach a manager when I feel they are expecting too much is important to avoid negative pressure. This should be communicated in a respectful, calm manner.

Transactional management is based on a reward function between managers and employees. Employees will be rewarded or praised for perform a task effectively and in contrast, critiqued for doing something poorly. Although this can fuel hard work, it creates a strong sense of hierarchy and distance between manager and employee.

It would be emotionally challenging for me to work under a transactional manager as it would rely entirely on the outcome of a project rather than focusing equally between the process and the outcome. Although a reward system is motivating, it can still be unfulfilling. I would set attainable goals for myself (rather than relying solely on a manager’s approval) and try not to compare myself to others. It is important to remind oneself that perhaps a manager is under intense pressure to perform a task effectively. Thus, I would have to practice empathy towards their intense, distant way of management.

Pa/ Maternalistic management upholds a very strong, emotional interaction or role towards their employees. They care deeply about others’ interests and blur the professional and personal boundaries. Pa/ Maternalistic managers have intense passion about a task or situation which makes them monitor employees carefully.

When working under Pa/ Maternalistic management, it would be a real challenge for me to emotionally detach myself from certain situations (especially when they care so much). I feel that their care can easily turn into a sense of overbearing expectations or a suffocating environment. I would need to remind myself of professional boundaries. Maintaining independent thinking within projects is also important to avoid being overshadowed by a pa/ materialistic manager. It is also vital to kindly approach them and ask for space when feeling stifled.

Servant management creates an environment where collaboration between management and employees is very important. Management may place their employees’ needs before their own. They are focused on providing a positive environment where employees’ needs are met to its fullest potential.

I would struggle under servant management as the boundaries between a professional or personal relationship can become unclear. It is important to remind oneself of these boundaries. When collaborating, it is crucial that I remain confident in my opinion and work. Furthermore, I should be open to change in relation to decisions or processes.

Laissez- Faire management tends to work with a very trusting, laid back approach. They are not always involved with completing tasks or giving instructions. Their main aim is to provide their employees with freedom, space and independence.

Their detached approach towards monitoring their employees can sometimes be challenging for one to remain motivated. Thus, it is important for employees to have strict personal deadlines if they want to be productive. I would ensure that I try my best to stick to these deadlines so work does not become unsatisfying. I would have to remain assertive if colleagues become controlling in the absence of a more active management style. Fuethermore, it will be beneficial if I do not extend myself to compensate for a coworker’s lack of effort in a task or to become the rescuer.

Democratic management creates a fair environment, aiming to appreciate and take into account all employees equally. Their decisions are often based on others’ thoughts and opinions and makes an employee feel part of the process.

I would appreciate working under democratic management as I would feel heard and valued equally amongst coworkers. I would aim to give substantial, effective and positive input when necessary and practice not taking that privilege for granted.

Pace-setting management upholds high expectations for their employees and have intense focus towards a goal. They aim for effective, quick methods within competitive environments.

Although working in a fast paced environment can be a good challenge, I think over time I would overwork myself. It is important that I create a strong boundary between work and personal life to ensure time for personal care and relaxation. It is crucial to not become over competitive and lose sight of the importance of the process within a task rather than the outcome. This would enable me to produce good quality work (within reason of a time restriction) rather than simply focusing on a fast, effective outcome.

Bibliography

Casali, EF. 2015. The Six Styles of Leadership. Intense Minimalism. [Online]. Available https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/the-six-styles-of-leadership/. [Accessed 10/10/2019].

Cowen, A. 2018. 8 Leadership Styles: Which One Are You?. About Leaders.[Online]. Available: <https://aboutleaders.com/8-leadership-styles-one/#gs.9c1z0x>. [Accessed 09/10/2019].

#BS220

0 notes

mikemortgage · 6 years ago

Text

Inside the power struggle between big banks and fintechs to modernize financial services

Canada has a rich history of innovation, but in the next few decades, powerful technological forces will transform the global economy. Large multinational companies have jumped out to a headstart in the race to succeed, and Canada runs the risk of falling behind. At stake is nothing less than our prosperity and economic well-being. The Financial Post set out explore what is needed for businesses to flourish and grow. You can find all of our coverage here.

The federal government put the word out last July: it needed someone to study the landscape for financial technology companies, or fintechs, and figure out how they were getting along with the big banks and other financial institutions.

Sue Britton’s firm, Toronto-based Fintech Growth Syndicate Inc., won the contract for the study. In January, the group said it turned in a 240-page report, the first of its kind in Canada, that used only publicly available data sourced from more than 60 different websites.

What it found, among other things, was that there were approximately 1,000 fintechs across Canada offering services or products related to crowdfunding, insurance, wealth management, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, capital markets, lending and payments.

The majority of those companies were startups, founded in the years following 2012, and employed less than 99 people each, though combined they had more than 30,000 people. Perhaps more eye-catching was the estimated value of fintech startups in Canada: $30.5 billion.

Innovation Nation: How Canada’s big banks are holding back the knowledge economy

How to finance a Canadian tech startup, from pre-seed to series D

Canada’s cybersecurity firms keep turning to the U.S. for funding, leaving us without a homegrown leader

What the study did not find, however, was 1,000 partnerships with financial institutions: Canada’s Big Five banks may have been increasing their engagement with fintechs, but “the majority of their efforts” were still on building their own products and digital experiences. They were also busy trying to update their “bowl of spaghetti” technologies and systems, some of which may be decades old.

As a result, one of Canada’s biggest industries is innovating at a relatively tame pace, the country is lagging its peers in adopting new financial technologies and consumers of all types may be paying more for services than they should. The financial industry’s existing business models could eventually come under pressure as well.

“To the extent that we could find publicly available information, we were able to show that, yes, there are some fintechs that are partnering with financial institutions,” Britton said. “But certainly the majority of those partnerships are on the financial institutions’ terms. They’re not groundbreaking new business models … It’s not going to make the marketplace more competitive, because it’s going to, in fact, if anything, grow the business for the incumbent.”

Retaining the status quo may be all well and good for big banks and insurance companies for now. It may even be good for their customers — and most financial consumers have a connection to a big bank or insurer — who may be enjoying a smoother user experience or a new platform at their current institution of choice.

But legacy financial companies face a bit of a conflict of interest when it comes to innovation. After all, they have earnings targets to hit, shareholders to keep happy and thousands of employees and existing systems already in place to meet those goals. Why risk cannibalizing such profitable businesses or, moreover, give the vaunted stability of Canada’s financial industry a jolt?

Yet the incumbents could wake up one day to find their lunches being eaten by big-tech firms such as Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc., which are already offering a payments solution, some more aggressively than others.

“What our big banks aren’t doing is moving as quickly as other parts of the world, innovating their business models, extending financial services to more small businesses or reducing their fees,” Fintech Growth Syndicate said. “Perhaps, as Abraham Lincoln famously said, ‘give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe,’ they are still sharpening the axe.”

It’s also possible that no one is even swinging an axe in the financial sector, despite the federal government’s efforts to push the innovation envelope in various industries.

Competition Bureau research “points to low levels of financial technology adoption in Canada relative to other countries, and limited consumer engagement driven, in part, by frictions associated with shopping around and switching,” according to a document published in February by the interim commissioner of competition. “These factors are symptoms of a market that is not functioning to its full potential.”

Britton believes the major banks and insurers face the innovator’s dilemma, first outlined in a 1997 book by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen: An incumbent with a big base of existing customers and shareholders demanding good returns is unlikely to welcome a company that could disrupt its own business.

On the other hand, “You don’t want to wake up one day and be Blockbuster,” she said.

Nobody, of course, wants to be compared to a bankrupt video-store chain, which is why the financial sector is certainly aware that the big-tech companies are making inroads into their business.

Royal Bank of Canada chief executive Dave McKay reportedly noted in mid-March that he was increasingly concerned with the prospect of Facebook Inc., Amazon.com, Apple, Netflix Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google (the FANG companies) getting into banking.

“They are getting between us and the moments of truth of our customers, and currently what they do with that is they sell that insight back to us in the form of search and advertising and other perspectives, and they earn a certain amount of economic rent,” he said, according to Bloomberg.

RBC and the other big financial institutions know they need to up their game, something that was noted by Luge Capital, a Canadian venture fund focused on fintech and artificial intelligence, when it did its own scan of the fintech landscape for a report published last October.

Luge Capital, which has been backed by institutions such as the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Sun Life Financial Inc., found the climate for possible partnerships between startups and big banks or insurers had improved.

“Large incumbents have customers, well-established brands and vaults of financial resources,” the report said. “As a venture capital fund with large financial institutions backers, such as Sunlife, Desjardins, CDPQ and La Capital and Le Fonds FTQ, we see first hand their desire to partner with early stage innovators.”

The biggest banks may still have the “vast majority” of the market share in financial services, but there has been a shift recently, said Karim Gillani, general partner at Luge Capital.

“In the last three to five years, there’s been a widespread recognition amongst the FIs (financial institutions) that they need to work with the early stage or smaller fintech companies in order to enhance their service offering for their customers,” he said.

Gillani said there was value in financial institutions exploring new ways of “offering functionality,” such as robo-advisers as a form of wealth management, something several banks have already done.

“It’s a demonstration of how banks are shifting their view from the traditional wealth-management experience to something that’s more automated and driven by technology so that it becomes appealing to a different segment of the population,” he said.

The federal government might open another door for the fintechs to get to the market. Ottawa is currently considering the idea of open banking, which is supposed to give people more control of their data and make it more portable.

The competition commissioner, in a submission made in response to a government consultation paper that outlined the benefits and concerns of open banking, said the framework could allow consumers to shop around and compare prices, potentially stirring up competition by lowering search costs.

“Banks would be forced to compete harder for consumers, and consumers would have access to a broader range of services, if the benefits of technology could be more fully exploited through open banking,” the submission stated.

Yet bringing third parties into Canada’s financial system — renowned for its stability — has raised some concern for at least one federal regulator, who pointed out that such decentralization “magnifies non-financial risks and diffuses accountability.”

Ben Gully, assistant superintendent at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, raised the issue in a little-noticed speech in February, noting that new tools will be required to manage these concerns.

“Technology will enable or accelerate further decentralization of financial market participants and blur the boundaries of a traditional regulated financial institution,” he said, according to a copy of his remarks.

In other words, increasing the number of touch points increases the number of potential vulnerable spots and the likelihood that the buck no longer stops with a bank, which is where regulators are used to seeing it stop.

Instead of worrying that banks carry enough capital, watchdogs now have to worry about the type of cloud storage or anti-virus software that lenders use, but do not entirely control.

“We have seen the link between non-financial risks and their impact on reputation, such as the public and stakeholder responses to third-party privacy breaches,” Gully said. “These can quickly affect an institution’s operations, its ability to grow its business and, potentially, its bottom line.”

But it’s hard to see the financial industry shunning technology completely. The uses for paper bankbooks and even brick-and-mortar branches are becoming fewer and farther between as customer preferences shift toward mobile and online banking and other financial services.

There are also strong signs that other sectors are chomping at the bit for the financial industry to adopt more innovations.

For example, Wayne Pommen was in Las Vegas earlier in March looking over hundreds of tables and chairs and signs, all lined up to match retailers with the tech companies vying to serve them. It was a scene not dissimilar to a speed-dating event.

“I’m in a sea of logos,” Pommen, chief executive of Toronto-based fintech PayBright, told the Financial Post in a phone interview during a break in the action.

PayBright is a consumer lender, paying retailers the next business day while allowing customers to pay off their purchases in instalments, and the retail conference was the perfect place to announce some news: Pommen’s firm revealed a partnership with Swedish fintech unicorn Klarna Bank AB, which could allow thousands of merchants worldwide to offer the PayBright option to Canadian customers.

The money for PayBright’s payments comes from the same place as it does for a lot of folks: banks. The company has received funding from Canadian Western Bank, as well as the Canadian Business Growth Fund, which is backed by the Big Six banks, as well as major insurers.

Pommen said the big banks may have massive consumer bases and lower costs of capital, but the fintechs can offer faster ways to deploy technology and develop better user experiences.

“Most banks and fintechs have realized there’s huge benefits to partnership,” he said.

A report released on March 25 by Toronto Finance International, a tie-up between government, the financial-services sector and academia, found growing collaboration between financial institutions and fintechs, but “key challenges” on both ends of these partnerships.

“In our discussions with executives of Canadian financial institutions, one problem outlined was difficulty in finding the right fintech offering enterprise-ready products or services meeting the scalability and security requirements of FI’s systems,” the report said. “Also, with a relatively lower technology adoption rate as compared to other global fintech hubs, Canadian businesses tend to look for proven solutions when partnering with fintechs.”

The Toronto Finance International report — which noted financial institutions can provide fintechs with mentorship and guidance in addition to financing — also found that Canadian fintech hubs were trailing when it came to embracing disruptive technology.

But Canadian consumers, most of whom bank with at least one of the Big Six, may have no idea such alternatives exist.

“Some think that consumers don’t want fintech solutions because adoption in Canada is lower than other regions, and that there isn’t a need to aggressively enable a more competitive financial services market,” FGS said. “But maybe it’s not because Canadians don’t want fintech products — it’s that they don’t know that opportunity is out there.”

The number of those products is also increasing, with or without partnership, but may be losing some steam.

At the time of Fintech Growth Syndicate’s study, only parts of which were shared with the Financial Post, there were 995 fintech companies in Canada. That has since increased to more than 1,050, it said, although the rate of new companies being created has been in decline in recent years. The TFI report found that the number of fintech startups founded in the Toronto region dropped to nine last year from 33 in 2014.

To help make some of those companies successful, Britton suggested governments look at their own structures. The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority acts as the financial-services watchdog and has a mandate to promote competition. OSFI, as one example, does not have such a mandate.

It will take time for Canada to begin adopting tech like other countries, Britton said. But it will happen.

“It’s not a blip, it’s not a bubble, it’s not a one-off,” she said. “It is the future.”

• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: GeoffZochodne

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2JKzo6r via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

#IFTTT #Financial Post

0 notes

texasanxietytreatmenthelp-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Why Some Youtubers Suffer From Anxiety

Social media is perhaps the biggest revolution since internet became accessible to all. Almost everyone is using one or two accounts to stay connected with family, friends and fans. While crossing the street, enjoying a dinner date, or during shopping or sleep time, the beep of the mobile is a constant reminder where one’s allegiance lies — to check the notification. And no matter what, it is most likely that one will stop mid street or stop eating in order to text, message, tweet or just give a “like.”

Not just youngsters but many YouTube stars and wannabe stars who are caught up in the social media web are feeling the heat. The virtual life is taking over their real life. Some youths barely out of their teens or in their early twenties admit to strategizing before posting on image-focused platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to ensure maximum likes and gain followers. Although studies have proved that YouTube has a less negative impact on people’s minds, young celebrities are of a different opinion. Superstars like Essena O’Neill (Australian teenager) or Lauren Kobayashi Riihimaki (of LaurDIY fame) are bearing the brunt of too much “self-promotion.”

However, maintaining an online status is an uphill task and beset with problems such as the ones below:

Churning out original content on a day-to-day basis is no mean feat and one needs to be constantly on his/her toes to upload new and interesting videos, posts and images. While it could be fun initially, it soon turns stressful. Neill points out that posing 100 times before getting the right picture can be frustrating, time consuming and stressful.

YouTube stars have to be accessible to their fans all the time. The competition is fierce, and one risks losing fans the moment he/she gets slack.

Fans are unpredictable. They could like one post and post ugly and vituperative comments on the other. For some, like Lauren, filters are a safe bet to keep the negativity away. Many people who have been berated online suffer from low esteem, and are scared of social media to the extent that they isolate themselves.

Considering the demanding nature of their job, many are filter chained 24/7 to the web. This is claustrophobic and wearing the grab constantly can lead to depression and anxiety.

Unlike Hollywood stars or celebrity bloggers, most YouTubers have to do all the work themselves. Whether it is choosing the makeup or the location, or the script, they have many shoes to step into, which can be stressful in the long run.

Staying awake for long and getting less sleep is a result of the obsession over the number of likes in their online feeds. This lack of sleep during bedtime could wreak havoc on the body’s circadian rhythm which furthers mental and physical health disorders.

The reel and the real

Neill had an enviable following of 570,000 fans when her career peaked. Her decision to quit was dramatic and it was reportedly fueled by her bouts of anxiety and depression. Publicly venting her umbrage on social media, Essena in her various social media profiles declared that the life she was living was “not real life." She then deleted all her accounts on YouTube, SnapChat and Tumblr.

Essena has been candid about posting images of her anxiety-ridden, emotionally vacant, and sad phases while pursuing the journey of rejuvenation. Riihimaki, with a fan following of over 6 million, is “breaking down.” "I have overcome and pushed the boundaries of my anxiety so insanely since I started YouTube," she said. The mental health pressures have forced her to seek a therapist’s help and she’s currently on medication.

Seeking help for anxiety-related problems

One of the biggest dangers of social media is that soon the line between the real and online world blurs. When one spends longer time over the web, the likelihood of someone giving importance to other tasks and spending time with loved ones physically becomes remote. The possibility of mental disorders, especially anxiety, looms large when one gets more passionate about fame and money, and starts ignoring health and happiness.

If you know someone who is suffering from anxiety, contact the experts at the Texas Anxiety Treatment Centers Helpline to access effective treatment options. Call our 24/7 helpline 866-487-5015 for information on some of the best anxiety disorders treatment centers in Texas.

#Anxiety Disorders Treatment Centers in Texas #Texas Anxiety Treatment Centers Helpline #Anxiety Treatment Centers Helpline #Anxiety Disorders Treatment Centers #Anxiety Disorders

0 notes

itchy-archive · 8 years ago

Text

Playing ideology | Essay for Videogames as socialcultural phenomenon

Introduction

Primary idea behind this text is searching for way to express my understanding how games are reflected by contemporary ideologies. For this purpose I chose text Games of Empire : Global Capitalism and Video Games - which promised arguments based on Marxist’s perspectives at first glance. This perceiving gives me ground for critical thinking about contemporary experience but I don’t consider such ideology as essentially my own although very useful. I preferred Neo-Marxist theoretics instead of pro Capitalism theoretics of Austrian School because they are strictly economic or Objectivism theoretics which constitutes art in very limited boundaries and hence doesn’t deal witch vast amount of cultural complexities as Marxist tradition does.

What is empire?

“There is no alternative” | Margaret Thatcher

Authors use concept of Empire based on Hardt and Negri’s works Empire and Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire which introduces concept of Empire. “What distinguishes Hardt and Negri’s Empire from these earlier empires is that it is not directed by any single state. Rather, it is a system of rule crystallized by what Karl Marx called the “world market.” Empire is governance by global capitalism. This domination works, Hardt and Negri say, through “network power”. Its decentered, multilayered institutional agencies include nation-states but extend to include multinational corporations, like Microsoft and Sony, world economic bodies, like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, international organizations like the United Nations, and even nongovernmental organizations, like the Red Cross. What results from the interaction of these nodes is an imperium more comprehensive than any preceding one.” In such way are clearly established two interlinked agencies, states and organizations. But another argument is in play. Embodied idea behind Empire is there is no outside to it. “They claim we are witnessing the emergence of a new planetary regime in which economic, administrative, military, and communicative components combine to create a system of power “with no outside” .

This idea resonate in contemporary left thinkers like Mark Fisher in constitution of term Capitalistic Realism. In his book bearing same name, which acts as guide in contemporary capitalistic criticism, he argues that Fukuyama’s The End of History made thru emergence of liberal democracies and capitalistic market brought ideal of human history and such ideal is broadly accepted in our cultural unconsciousness. Fisher’s argument comes from Žižek’s Lacanial psychoanalysis. My own experience with mainstream media construction of subjectivity correlate with such conclusion. Mainstream narrative refer to capitalistic excesses in sense of flaws of individuals, not in sense of structural or ideological criticism which is used against well known old or new enemies as Radical Islamists, Maoists, Bolsheviks etc. Once democracy and capitalism are established, state and capitalistic policies are open to alternation thru established processes, but thinking outside of capitalistic box is observed as radical. In psychological terms living in system of power with no outside establish cynicism as preferable way to perceive idealism, there is not other political ideal then one you are living in. End of ideology brought ubiquitous ideology of capitalism. God bless Marxist publishing industry and commodification.

Empire thus deal with more then geopolitical power it deals with social subjects which is it based on. It offers “... comprehensive account of conditions of work, forms of subjectivity, and types of struggle in contemporary capital. Empire is global in terms not only of its geographic reach but also of its social scope. Capital now taps its subjects’ energies at multiple points: not just as workers (as labor power) but also as consumers (the “mind share” targeted by marketers), as learners (university degrees as vocational preparation), and even as a source of raw materials (the bio-value extracted for genetic engineering). Empire is thus a regime of “biopower”— a concept borrowed from the philosopher Michel Foucault — exploiting social life in its entirety.”

Immaterial labor in Empire

Hard and Negri used for their analysis term immaterial labor. It is such work which involve information and communication, “the labor that produces the informational, cultural, or affective element of the commodity” . Immaterial labor is work that “creates immaterial products such as knowledge, information, communication, a relationship or an emotional response. It is not primarily about making a material object, like the work that makes a car roll off an assembly line or extracts coal from a mine. Rather, immaterial labor involves the less-tangible symbolic and social dimensions of commodities.”

We can find wide range of immaterial labor, from coordinational and tutoring and lecturing labor thru working with symbolic languages as programmers to journalistic, artistic or advertisements proffesions. Core of immaterial labor is production of subjectivity, which vital for Empire because “central media, marketing, communication, and surveillance are, not just in creating new commodities— such as video games— but also in managing the workplaces that produce them and in appealing to the consumers who buy them. It is through the fiber-optic cables and wireless connections of digital networks run by immaterial labor that the tendrils of business stretch around the planet, the equivalents for today’s Empire of the Roman roads that tied together Caesar’s dominion”. As such immterial labor is hegemonic form of work in the global capitalism, because it lies in most dynamic a strategic sectors of capitalism.

Empire of authors

Authors of games of Empire slightly modulated concept of Hardt’s and Negri’s Empire, hence it didn’t missed wave of criticism. By Empire they mean “the global capitalist ascendancy of the early twenty first century, a system administered and policed by a consortium of competitively collaborative neoliberal states, among whom the United States still clings, by virtue of its military might, to an increasingly dubious preeminence. This is a regime of biopower based on corporate exploitation of myriad types of labor, paid and unpaid, for the continuous enrichment of a planetary plutocracy. Among these many toils, immaterial labor in information and communication systems, such as the media, is not necessarily most important. But it clearly occupies a strategic position because of its role in intellectually and affectively shaping subjectivities throughout other parts of the system. This Empire is an order of extraordinary scope and depth. Yet it also is precarious.”

In such definition they feathered importance of immaterial labor, which was as another genre of labor vastly criticised by scholars. But kept essentiality in production of subjectivity. Also they stressed different interlocking crises as ecological, energetic and epidemilogical and tensions between declining US and rising China which could either result in supercapitalist accommodation or split world in Eastern and Western empires.

Multitude

Such political, cultural and ecological tensions bring last subject of Empire which is multitude. Multitude means pro and contra movements in Empire. In Negri’s and Hardt’s work multitude is only way how to transform reality of capitalism into something new, it is soil of change, soil where resistance can emerge and create something new. Although they restrain from precise definition of multitude, multitude is not meant in positive or negative connotations. It is space for transformation from beloew, brewery of new idealism. It contains disastrous regressive forces as alQaueda and at same time justice movements, emancipation or whatever. Chaos of multitude is place for ideology of games. For me it is place where subjectivities clash hence it is place for battle of ideologies.

Empire and games

“In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.” | Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

Games are exemplary media of Empire. “They crystallize in a paradigmatic way its constitution and its conflicts. Just as the eighteenth century novel was a textual apparatus generating the bourgeois personality required by mercantile colonialism (but also capable of criticizing it), and just as twentieth century cinema and television were integral to industrial consumerism (yet screened some of its darkest depictions), so virtual games are media constitutive of twenty-first-century global hypercapitalism and, perhaps, also of lines of exodus from it.”

Games are integral for Empire because they are originated in U.S. military-industrial complex. They have been created in free-minded hacker knowledge community, which emerged as new type of intellectual worker: immaterial labor. Which was vital for fresh phase of capitalistic expansion. Such culture was incubator for most advanced ways to production and communication and game machines tutored entire generations into digital technologies and networked communication.

“The game industry has pioneered methods of accumulation based on intellectual property rights, cognitive exploitation, cultural hybridization, transcontinentally subcontracted dirty work, and world-marketed commodities. Game making blurs the lines between work and play, production and consumption, voluntary activity and precarious exploitation, in a way that typifies the boundless exercise of biopower. At the same time, games themselves are an expensive consumer commodity that the global poor can access only illicitly, demonstrating the massive inequalities of this regime. Virtual games simulate identities as citizensoldiers, free-agent workers, cyborg adventurers, and corporate criminals: virtual play trains flexible personalities for flexible jobs, shapes subjects for militarized markets, and makes becoming a neoliberal subject fun. And games exemplify Empire because they are also exemplary of the multitude, in that game culture includes subversive and alternative experiments searching for a way out.”

Such positive statements are hard to accept in memory of Guy Debord’s criticism in Society of Spectacle. What is meaning of subversive subjectivity when “it is obvious that no idea can lead beyond the existing spectacle, but only beyond the existing ideas about the spectacle. To effectively destroy the society of the spectacle, what is needed is men putting a practical force into action.” Or are words of game developer Pedercini from Culture Jamming: “We often claim that it is important for us not to produce games to entertain radical people, but doing radical games.” really enough to get from spectacle to real action.

Are we realizing détournement or recuperating? Is subversiveness enough to bring man into action or is another form of mere representation of spectacle in which he dreams his dream about real action? Recuperation, cultural appropriation and commodification can be clearly seen in capitalistic ever-lasting life cycle.. Music and culture from which it came from like jazz, rock’n’roll, punk, rap, rave lost edge of subversive nature. They are no longer bear threatening criticism. Radicality is always coming from outside and is slowly transformed into spectacle and commodity. In such context it is sticky to admit such positive perspective, but quite acceptable is idea that games are protagonists of multitude who tries to wake up man for act outside of spectacle.

Empire and war

“In their structure and content, computer games are a capitalist and deeply conservative form of culture” | Julian Stallabrass

However innovations created in hacker community proved to be impossible to control. In the hands of the immaterial laborers who made them, the communications and information technologies created for the military-security state were subverted into playful expressions of digital delight. The irony, however, was that in liberating computers, and games, from the Pentagon, “deterritorializing” them from the realm of nuclear death, hackers inadvertently set the stage for their “reterritorialization” by capital in pure commodity form.

But apart from commodification, games still incorporates and exemplifies war-fighting apparatus of Empire, “in ways that render developers and players material partners in military technoculture, and Defense Departments' systemic cullers of gamer subjectivities: this is what makes virtual play integral to "banal war," the normalized state of perpetual conflict Empire's global control demands.” Connections between simulators and pilotless armored Drones or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle) used in Iraq, interfaces used in military technologies resembling and exploiting pre-military gamer skill of soldiers are on plate at first glance.But such ubiquitous manifestation of normality of conflict and war have no better bearer then games.

War in empire is “waged not to resolve disputes between states but to maintain order within a global territory where there seem to be minor and elusive enemies everywhere”. Unlike wars between two nation states ended by formal surrender or negotiation, there is rarely a definitive moment of victory over today’s foes, so that one cannot win such a war, or, rather, it has to be won again every day; war thus becomes a permanent social relation, a general phenomenon.” In such diffusal situation war doesn’t have strict limits. In sense of security boundaries between civilian policing and war fighting blur. “The separation of tasks between the external and internal arms of power (between the army and the police, the CIA and the FBI) is increasingly vague and indeterminate.” This produces state of exception that is, “an exceptional, but ongoing, suspension or erosion of civil rights, declared necessary for the preservation of democracy itself. This environment of nebulous, dispersed, and protracted conflict means that quasi-war conditions tend to become a way of life—the new normal. War organizes not just military forces abroad but civilian life at home. War has, in other words, become a regime of biopower, as daily life and the normal functioning of power [have] been permeated with the threat and violence of warfare”

“The socialization necessary for populations to endure and endorse such an ongoing condition of life brings us to the concept of banalized war. In this situation, war becomes part of the culture of everyday life, with the enemy depicted as an absolute threat to the ethical order and reduced to an object of routine police repression. The long-standing interaction of video game culture and the military apparatus is a component in this process of the banalization of war.”

Authors analysed game Full Spectrum Warrior which embodies culture industry obedience to War on Terror and reproduction of state’s paranoias. Digital games and military simulations have shared same genealogy. Commercial sector overpowered military simulations and after 9/11 attacks, military contacted entertainment industry in order to produce sophisticated trained aids for their soldiers. Full Spectrum Warrior has been released in military and commercial version. Term Full Spectrum is coming from military terminology and means new concept of scalable warfare across full spectrum of military technologies. Primary purpose is to train decisions in such scalable warfare, and give experience to soldier about perspective from higher hierarchical rank, where more than 8 persons are commanded.

Full Spectrum Warrior use as background geopolitical situation based on contemporary mainstream media as CNN. Position of warrior is on our good side, actually one of the friendly troops have helmet with NYPD on it, which kind of express idea of global police. In the game reason behind intervention in virtual scenario is based on UN unresolved problems and NATO voted to intervene. Name of country in need for intervention is Zekistan which is quite self explicate. Whole background ideology is summarised by one one troop “I think just by being here we help.”

Troops in games are embodied “In their mix of ethnicities and classes, Alpha and Bravo are an equal opportunity paradigm. Of their eight members, three are Caucasian, two black, one Arab, and one Polynesian. There are four high-school diploma holders, one graduate from university (pre-law), two from college, and one from police academy. Though painfully programmatic in its inclusiveness, this is actually a semiplausible representation of a combat squad in the actual contemporary army, which is “in essence a working class military,” enlisted from people who are “upwardly mobile,” but from families “without the resources to send them to college”. With “minorities overrepresented and the wealthy and underclass essentially absent,” its composition resembles that of “a two year commuter or trade school outside Birmingham or Biloxi.” Alpha and Bravo are somewhat better educated, and more” In narrative troops are buddies and enemies are nameless and usually faceless, there is no place for enemy as human being.

“That video games are too violent is a common claim. But Full Spectrum Warrior (FSW) is perhaps not violent enough. … It is essential to FSW that time can be reversed, and every mistake undone; the “savedie-restart” sequence makes Alpha and Bravo immortal. This is, of course, the big lie of war-as-video-game.” This argument surprised me, i usually deal with games as with other cultural artifacts, i don’t care about realism, i care about meanings, and game over means death for soldier very clearly. But important point in game is in not violent enough attitude. Represented violence usually lacks brutality of reality, violence is usually something which you experience in its aesthetical and emotional impact is vast and raw. Especially once you realise you couldn’t witness whole squad annihilation, which is actually possible option in real world but not in context of game which work by rule: “The U.S. Army has zero tolerance for casualties! This is war where no one lies for hours gut-shot and shrieking for his mother; has his testicles blown off; or wakes in the hospital finding he has lost a limb. It is war without mutilation or post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also war without moral dilemmas.”

Such lackness of externalities is from my standpoint crucial for capitalistic society. Pain, enemy as human being is not really part of narratives, they are usually based on conservative rhetorics afronting mainstream values instead of simply accepting moral seriousness of killing someone with all inner consequences for rest of life. I therefore end this essay with two quotes: “But the interesting example that I always bring up is Rwanda. A lot of my friends were really angry that we didn’t do something there. These are really liberal, typically anti-war people. And I wonder if they realize that if we had gone into Rwanda—a very good war from a moral standpoint, most people would probably agree—I wonder if they realize that you would have had soldiers at checkpoints at night firing in panic at civilians, slaughtering people by accident. You’d have all sorts of terrible things happening. And I think that the problem with American society is we don’t really understand what war is. Our understanding of it is too sanitized.” In spectacle, it is hard to find accurate representation of ongoing stream of life, we are always watching thru idelogies. "Real rule of war is that the people who suffer the most are civilians." Such subjetification is still waiting for game production.

Bibliography

Bainbridge, William. The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds in Science 317, 2007 http://files.harc.edu/WWW/About/Internships/2007/ScienceArticle.pdf

Barnes, Trevor J. Review of Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games.

http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~tbarnes/pdf/REVIEW_Games_of_Empire.pdf

Debord, Guy. The Society of Spectacle. 1967. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA). BAA 07-56 Deep Green Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). 2007.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/files/PUB_BAA_DARPA_07-56_Deep_Green.pdf

Dyer-Witheford, Nick and Peuter, Greig de. Empire@Play: Virtual Games and Global Capitalism. in Ctheory.net http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=608

Dyer-Witheford, Nick and Peuter, Greig de. Games of Empire : Global Capitalism and Video Games. University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Access from NKP:

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/natl/docDetail.action?docID=10408965

Fisher, Mark. Kapitalistický realismus. Rybka Publishers, 2010.

Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio. Empire. Harvard University Press, 2001

http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/negri/HAREMI_printable.pdf

Levitz, Jennifer. Playing the Market, These Kids Are Losing a Lot of Play Money in The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122523644863577999.html

Pedercini, Paolo. An Interview with Paolo Pedercini of Molleindustria http://www.culture-jamming.de/interviewVIIe.html

Poole, Steven. Working for the Man: Against the Employment Paradigm in Videogames.

http://stevenpoole.net/trigger-happy/working-for-the-man/

Simon, Bart. Critical Theory, Political Economy and Game Studies: A Review of "Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games. in Game studies http://gamestudies.org/1102/articles/simon

Wright, Evan. Into Iraq With 'Generation Kill': An Interview with Evan Wright.

http://oldarchive.godspy.com/reviews/Into-Iraq-With-Generation-Kill-An-Interview-with-Evan-Wright-by-Angelo-Matera.cfm.html

0 notes