The paper makes me think of the skill set I’ll need to showcase when approaching prospective employers, the urgency to immerse myself in the technologies that maximize the potentials of social networking, and the ways I can grow myself and my organization using these technologies in the future. First, it makes me think of the ways I could arguably bring “value” to my current job and my jobs in the future. In particular, I imagine myself sitting in an interview, and my interviewer asking, “How exactly can you use social networking for our benefit?” Though I could answer that question to a degree, this paper made me realize that it’s necessary to know exactly what social media can do for a company, rather than having a vague idea of its abilities. For all of its potential and buzzwords, any company is still going to desire a concrete set of benefits if they asked you that question. Secondly, the first point makes me realize the need to push myself to adopt new technologies in social networking, since only then can I understand what they bring to an organization. I haven’t been the best adopter of things like Twitter, Digg, or NetVibes, but it’s urgent that I use these tools (even if I don’t do so frequently) to at least gain an appreciation for what they can accomplish. And finally, the paper again stressed the ways that social networking promotes the notions of “on-going learning” and improvement, especially within a company. As an individual designer and a member of a team, I can use social networking as a way to continually add value to my skill set by taking in new information, and as a way to provide feedback that can be used to improve work conditions or idea generation in a team environment.
