How blog's have affected community and Google Australia's new managing director!

Second post now! This week's media issue is about Google Australia's new management choice. Before that I am going to discuss how blogs have affected our community. These days everything is easily accessible with the click of the button for us and one of the mediums used are blogs. Blogs are a way for people to gain knowledge depending on the topic of the blogs, news, updates and even learn. For example, in my blog I am mainly writing about the knowledge gained in my Publication and Design course which others can access and learn as well just by reading my blog. Some people have shifted away from press releases and rely on blogging to get their daily news and such. I suppose this is all part of chasing and keeping up with technological advancements. However, what most are unaware of is that weblogs were not made in the journal/ diary themed design it is familiar for by most people now. Blogs were originally made to link users to other pages which are usually accompanied by short comments or annotations.

Furthermore, because of the uprising of blogging, the distinction between private and public has blurred. I say this in a sense that blogs these days are meant to document on a specific topic or is like a diary online that is available for the public which is contradicting to the original private styled diary in the past. Blogs have also become a very powerful medium of information mainly towards teenagers and people in their twenties. As a results, this could be a sign of traditional day media being replaced eventually. In conclusion, it is obvious that blogs have made a significant impact to society and will continue to make a bigger impact in the future.

Moving on, in an article by The Age in the past week, news that Google Australia has appointed their new managing director. Maile Carnegie, 43, who is currently local boss of Procter & Gamble, was appointed Google Australia and New Zealand's new managing director in replacement of Nick Leeder who will be moving to the headquarters in France.
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/google-australia-appoints-maile-carnegie-as-md-20130516-2jo4m.html

Google is a giant company worldwide and for one to be appointed managing director it is obvious that some may not agree that Carnegie may be up to the challenge. In my opinion, from observing Carnegie's past work experiences she is very suitable for the position.
Carnegie's experiences include:

• Procter & Gamble's managing director for Australia and New Zealand
• Managed roles overseas in countries like the US, Singapore and Australia
• Over 20 years of professional experience
• Holds a Degree in Finance, Economics and Marketing
• Member of advisory board at the University of Technology, Sydney

She is well armed to take over an organisation of that scale. Only time will tell however whether she will be a blessing to the organisation or be it's downfall. In conclusion, Google seems to be making a wise choice in choosing her to take over.

Week 1

Greetings! My name is Matthew, a Bachelor of Arts student at UniSA and this blog will be a sort of compilation of the knowledge gained in Issues in Publication and Design over the past 9 weeks. The topic of discussion in this post will be technology and how society is slowly rotting because of it.
In 2011, thestar.com, an online newspaper published an opinion article entitled 'Technology is dumbing down our society'. The article basically talks about the fact that society is getting more and more involved or some might call it obsessed with the involvement of technology.

Technology has its pros and cons. For example, some positive side effects that came about due to technology is making everything more accessible. Also, introducing more work opportunities. Next, it helps keep us organizing, gets tasks that used to take a day or two done in merely a quarter of that, and practically gives you the world at your fingertips. This is quite literal, in today's modern age, you do not have to move to get what you want. Want to shop? Online shopping is here, just browse click, pay and it's shipped to you. Too tired to buy the groceries? Just buy them from supermarket online websites and have them delivered right to your doorstep. Furthermore, it makes communication a lot easier. As an international students, it goes without saying that communicating with friends and relatives back home is hard but technology has helped shortened that gap. Now there is instant messaging, webcam chats like Skype and such, which makes it really easy to stay in touch with people overseas. Don't forget making money through online businesses.

However, technology has also brought much negative. Yes, without a doubt technology has been a blessing but it has also become one of the worst curses to society. Among the downfalls of technologies are causing people to lose their jobs, destroyed our social skills, made us dependent, and caused us to be somewhat primitive in a sense that some of us are no longer of carrying out basic life tasks like holding a conversation or going out to buy things. 

This has also effected our education and employment system. Back in "the day" if you had a college degree you knew there was a pretty good chance you were above average and will likely do ok in life but now any tom,dick or harry could get a degree as long as they could afford it. Technology has devalued qualifications and made adapt to unrealistic expectations to keep up with the changing environments. Furthermore, education has become dependent on technology. I cannot recall the amount of times I heard someone tell me class is going to be delayed we are having technical difficulties. In relations, these days we have online portals where we submit assignments and etc. If the portal is down we have to postpone the due date because of technical difficulties also. It is obvious that if someone were to somehow remove technology from the world completely, we will be so lost as to how to carry out tasks.

I for one can relate to this because I myself am a victim of these downfalls to a certain degree. When I was younger and did not have a mobile phone I had built up the ability to solve certain equations in my head or remember something that I have read without saving it somewhere. Also, my attention span was much better, I admit now if I was talking to someone and my phone vibrated, my attention would immediately shift to my phone and I'd have this itch to see what was it.

Bottom line is we need to be balanced in our usage of technology or it will become the death of society, or at least our social skills. I will conclude this post with a quote. 

“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”, Albert Einstein.