Archive for March, 2011
Since I am of a certain age (I was born when Ike was President of the U.S.), I have friends that refuse to engage on Facebook. While that is of course their right I cannot understand or even accept their reasoning behind not engaging in something that more than 600 million people find relevant. There are obvious benefits to being ‘connected’ on Facebook. And yes there are privacy issues and permission problems that are ongoing. But for me, and for most people I presume, the benefits far outweigh the detriments.
I suspect this situation is not all that different than when the telephone first came into popular use. Limited use of the telephone occurred starting with its invention by Alexander Graham Bell (or at least attributed to him) in the 1870s. Usage increased rapidly in the 1880s and 1890s as phone technology developed and central exchanges were built. It’s not difficult to imagine that there were many people that said and felt ‘why would I need to talk to anyone over a wire?’ And there were probably those that felt telephones would prove to be intrusive, (as anyone that has ever taken a telemarketing call during dinner can appreciate) and at times a general nuisance. But because the benefits far outweighed the detriments the telephone not only survived, it flourished. And today people carry telephones around with them wherever they go and they are nearly always ‘on’.
Is Facebook the new telephone? I am here to argue that in fact that’s exactly what it is. Telephone conversations are necessary at times but time consuming and cumbersome. It’s mostly a one-to-one dialog as opposed to the more open platform of Facebook. Don’t go thinking that I have drunk the Marc Zuckerberg Kool-Aid (I haven’t) or that Facebook has paid me to write this post (like that would ever happen).
Our children use Facebook the way party lines were used over fifty years ago. They post photos, music, share articles, suggest friends, have conversations and interact in a way that allows for faster and more than Mr. Graham Bell could have ever imagined. Ask any teenager if they’d rather speak with someone or text them over their mobile device. I think we all know the answer to that one.
So for my friends who feel that they are making some sort of statement by not engaging in Facebook’s communication platform the only statement they are making to me is that they prefer to remain unconnected to the world and in so doing are Luddites. Since the fastest growing Facebook segment is people over 40 these Facebook holdouts are truly in the minority. My prediction is that eventually they will
succumb and then wonder why they didn’t join in sooner.
It’s over folks – Facebook has won the game of connecting the world. You are either with the program or on the outside looking in.
Our daughter is a high school senior and interested in becoming an elementary education major (a teacher) when she begins college this fall. When she told my wife and me this nearly a year ago, we were very happy and proud of her. The world certainly can always use more great teachers and more importantly people that seek out teaching as an avocation as opposed to those that end up there.
Being an aware person, our daughter is also cognizant that teachers are not very well compensated. And new teachers are even less so. An article in Wednesday’s New York Times reminded me of something that’s been bothering me for a long time http://nyti.ms/hyBDEM which is the financial disincentive for bright young (and not young) minds to enter the education field. The idea that teachers only work from 8 until 3 and have weekends and three months off is a fallacy. Teachers grade papers and create lesson plans at night and on weekends; they take courses in the summer to keep up their certifications. Additionally, many teachers take second jobs simply to make ends meet.
How did it get to be this way? It’s not the same as in politics where I feel many smart and capable people stay away from ever getting involved even if they would want to help due to the scrutiny and shenanigans that accompany a life in politics. One could argue that politicians are at least appreciated to a certain degree. But that’s not often the case with the teaching profession.
When you are a parent and you meet your child’s kindergarten teacher you are focused on ascertaining that the teacher is a good one and will understand the individual skills and needs of your child. At that moment many people would be willing to hand over the cash in their pocket to ensure that the teacher would pay special attention to their cherished, precious baby. Yet it doesn’t happen that way.
As students matriculate parents become less patient and more aggravated with their school systems, their administrators, and yes individual teachers as well. Of course there are plenty of bad teachers out there and that’s an ongoing problem that has to be addressed. And politicians consistently discuss improving our schools, installing more benchmarks, testing score targets and the like. But to do that with shrinking budgets, increasing class sizes and uninvolved parents makes it increasingly difficult.
So here’s the conundrum. I feel teachers should be among the BEST paid workers. The United States is losing ground across the board to countless countries across the globe. Students in other countries have higher test scores and have more motivation and desire to learn. The world is going to eat our lunch right from our under our noses. It’s happening day by day.
To me it seems so horribly out of place that a backup Major League Baseball utility infielder should make $ 500,000 annually (more than ten times what teachers get paid) for – hmm, let’s see – 8 months of work (if you include spring training) although in season they do have to work weekends.
While there are so many problems inherent in the world of education, I remain convinced that our daughter is doing a great – and brave, thing by considering getting into the education field. I hope that for her sake that once she is educated and sees how teachers are perceived and compensated, she does not use that knowledge to abandon ship and seek other fields. But I wouldn’t blame her if she did. And that’s just sad.
I am sitting at my desk and the phone rings. For some reason our company does not have caller
ID. On the other end of the phone is a young (or so I assume) man (in fact I cannot recall a woman ever calling me with stock recommendations) who reminds me of a conversation we had a couple of months ago where he offered a few stocks for me to follow. The problem is that conversation never took place and I have a very good memory.
Brokerage houses obviously have some sort of prospect profile that identifies me as a potential customer. Aside from running a business for 15 years I am not sure what else identifies me as a person that would pick up the phone to speak with someone I do not know and be interested enough in some random stock recommendation that I would agree and engage them in a ‘relationship’ as a stock broker. Let me just say that I would NEVER do that.
But it has to work right? Dialing (pressing?) for dollars has been around nearly as long as the telephone has been in existence. So I surmise that the numbers game must be effective or else why would brokerage houses continue to employ this as a tactic? But the tactics are cheesy, sleazy and in my view even lower than a fast talking used-car salesman. On many occasions over the years someone employed to simply get me on the phone will call and ask me to hold for someone else – like this somehow makes it more important.
Having been involved in direct mail for much of my career, I was and am often asked why companies send junk mail. The answer is – because it works. No mailer wants to send mail to a person that does not wish to receive or respond to it. However the idea is that enough people will respond to make the promotion a success.
Receiving a mailing is incredibly less interrupting (and offensive) than a cold phone call from someone I don’t know asking me to trust them with investing money when they know nothing of my personal financial situation.
If I actually did receive a mailing from a stockbroker outlining their thought process, capability, and track record, and then that mailing was followed up by a phone call, if the information was compelling I would at least be more inclined to have some sort of conversation out of courtesy. That has never happened. And I don’t expect that it ever will.
I feel that the model of stock broker cold calling probably has not changed in fifty years. Isn’t it time it did? Do you get these kinds of calls? If so do they aggravate you?