Technology Thoughts

A Tale of Two Tragedies: With and Without Social Media

Waking up on 9/11 was just like any other day for an elementary school student living in New York City. My mom woke me up, made me breakfast, got me dressed and I was out to door walking to school with my father. It wasn’t until I was sitting in my first-ever computer class that my teacher burst through the door, screamed that a plane hit the World Trade Center, and then started to sob. Not knowing what to say or do, we sat at our desks quietly as we listened to people screaming outside. As we saw smoke creep up the sidewalks and up to our windows, we panicked. Teachers who had access to a radio were talking about the rumors that were quickly spreading about other possible attacks. We heard about the possibility of bombs being placed in schools and I prayed for my mother and brother who were in academic buildings. My dad soon burst into my classroom and grabbed my hand, telling me we had to leave. We then sat around his office with his employees listening to the radio, watching people scurry around outside, and trying to put the pieces together.

But the radio was all we had. I didn’t have a cell phone to call my parents, nor did they have cell phones to contact my school.  Twitter and Facebook had yet to be created, and there was certainly no TV nearby to listen to the news. We waited around our landline phones for calls from family members. At night, we watched one news station to try to figure out what was happening.

Waking up on July 20th, 2012 was just like any other day for a college student living in the digital world. I woke up,  browsed through my Instagram feed on my iPhone, and then started to check out the tweets I missed while I was asleep. I anticipated seeing word of how the most recent Batman movie was, expecting to hear about how amazing it was mixed in with a negative review. 

My Twitter feed was quickly filled with talk of movie theaters, children, and the horrific news of what happened the night before. Tweets of sadness, disbelief, and links to articles about the event were all that anyone was talking about. I read articles directly from my phone, retweeted links to spread the word, and continued to read reactions from people I followed. I then decided to run a general search on Twitter for Aurora to see what others were saying.Thinking that this may have been something personal that happened in her life, I dismissed the tweet and made a mental note to check back in with her later. Tweets posted shortly before this one included discussion of guns control laws, how people were in disbelief, and how sorry people were for victims in Aurora, CO. Feverishly scrolling through my Twitter feed, I quickly found the one tweet that summed up the events of the night.

It was only a matter of a few minutes before I knew the whole story. Facebook allowed us to keep track of what people were saying, along withReddit, Twitter’s search, and a Storify. I didn’t event get out of bed and yet, the news was sitting in various forms in the palms of my hands.

I then turned on my compter to watch the news about the horrible incident. (Mind you I do have a TV, but why would I watch it when I had a computer within arms reach?) My other roommate walked in, said that she checked Twitter and heard what happened, and then watched the news with me.

Checking Facebook later while at work, I stumbled across this status update. Developments, as well as continued condolences and reactions were overflowing the Internet.

News stations and Twitter accounts are still curating data and aggregating responses to best show the reaction to the news.Syracuse University is especially grateful to have Class of 2012 Class Marshall Stephen Barton (mentioned above) alive and well.  News will continue to pour in today as more people share their personal accounts of the story and updates on the alleged shooter are further investigated.

And yet, I can access it all from something I can carry in my pocket. I have yet to turn on the tv, sit around a television with my family, or look outside to try and get the news.

Social media has given us the ability to discover information faster than ever, discuss thoughts, send condolences, and share reactions.  Keeping up with the latest news or the ability to share your opinion with the world has never been easier, or more convenient.  What a difference eleven years makes.

Note: I do not think the events of 9/11 are comparable to the events of the shooting early this morning, the stories were compared merely for a comparison of the spread of news. My heart goes out to the victims of this awful tragedy as well as family, friends, and those injured. 

The Importance of Being A Well Rounded Technologist

Everyone working in IT has heard it before: “You’re in the right field.” or “You’re in the right place at the right time, IT is booming.”  There’s no doubt that IT is in fact the place to be in today’s world. School of Information Studies Professor Anthony Rotolo recently tweeted: #NewRule: It is no longer acceptable to say, “I’m not a technology person.”

The truth is, you’re a technologist if you know how to use your iPhone, if you can’t live without your laptop, and if you check social media more than you’d like to admit, you’re a technology person.

While it’s important to find your niche in the vast field of IT, it’s also important to be well-rounded. Not only do well-rounded technologists stand out in a pile of resumes, but you’ll be able to do, make, code, and organize projects that weren’t even thought of five years ago. Part of IT is always thinking of the next best thing. Being knowledgeable about code, design, organization, development, and testing are all key parts of being a knockout in the tech world.

Talk The Talk

IT is filled with protocols and acronyms that are constantly thrown around. “Did you set up the FTP client? Make sure there’s an SSL certificate on the site and don’t let the DNS server fail under any circumstances.” For people outside of IT, these letters are alphabet soup among other mind-boggling concepts. For an average person, going on the Internet is just opening a web browser. But for technologists, it’s about using DCHP to retrieve an IP address, connecting to an AP, etc., etc. Even if you don’t know how to set up an FTP client or a DNS server, it’s important to talk the talk and to actually know what you’re talking about. Nothing is more frustrating than someone who thinks they know what’s going on and ends up creating a technological mess. As a technologist, it’s important to know what’s going on and articulate it in a way that’s easy to understand, but also accurate.

Know The Code

Knowing how to code is one thing, but knowing about code is something completely different. Learning different programming languages and utilizing them is an undoubtedly great asset to have as a technologist. However, it’s not for everyone. Personally, I know a bit of a few coding languages. I can make a basic website and database and can recognize differences between languages. I know which languages serve which purposes but I don’t know enough (yet) to build my own product or service. The beauty of IT is that I don’t need to know this. While it’d be a great help if I did, I know enough to talk to developers about their style, the way they code, why they chose the languages they did, and how to read through code and understand it. Understanding can allow me to work more closely with developers than the average person but also understand the processes behind building a product. That in itself is incredibly valuable.

Know Project Management

You may know how about IT acronyms and how to code, but it may not go anywhere if you don’t know how to manage it all. Information is all around us, and it’s quite overwhelming to think of the information you can get with a few clicks and a couple of keystrokes. People are building all the time, and it requires a lot of managing and cycles before something is done right. Managing technological projects can be tough; it requires working with technologists and business folk alike to get something done. It’s important to know how to work with both parties and talk to them in a language each of them understands. Knowing both sides and connecting them can be difficult, but it pays off if it’s done correctly.

IT’s cross between management and technology, which used to be two completely different worlds, is now more ubiquitous than ever. Enthusiasts are bridging the gap between these two fields and creating innovative products and services that were previously unheard of. Even though some people gravitate towards the more technological side while others are interested in project management, knowing what’s on the other side and how to manage these two types of people can make you an incredibly valuable asset to any project team or company. It doesn’t hurt to have a strong area of interest or talent, but make sure you can back it up on the other side of IT too.