Foursquare is really quite an interesting experiment. With Facebook and Twitter, as well as many other sites, there are more and more opportunities for people to present their latest ideas and movements online to share. But why?
Communicating:
I can see why people want to use Facebook (i'm an addict by the way!) to communicate. It aggregates all your friends and links them to photos and interests. It's in a way just a better organised email system with nice features such as photo share. Similarly, Xing and LinkedIN are specialised aggregators of contacts aligning common professional networks.
News:
Twitter and other apps are news broadcasters. While you can communicate using Twitter, it's very disjointed in my view. I don't use it for much more than collecting news streams and screening over the news and other interest sites.
Online Presence:
It seems Foursquare and another I have seen blippy.com are attempting to entice people to put more information about their lives online. Foursquares is presented as a game to collect info on local cafes and 'places'. People then say where they, via mobile devices, and if they frequent it more than other users then they become the mayor of the location. I see Harvard University has listed all it's campus locations on Foursquare. In essence it is becoming a clever analytical tool to see where people are going and perhaps even learning why. Like Google analytics tracks users through a site, Foursquare may attempt to track humans in real life thanks to their willingness to input the data! How that will get monetised remains to be seen - a cool game at the moment. I'd love to find out more.
Blippy attracts even more extraverted people who list what they have recently purchased. So, while there are people who don't want to have a presence online under any circumstances, there are others who want to have absolutely everything online. Personally I find it a little strange
Where next?
I see these sites taking the input information from these extroverted people and aggregating that information (their movements, their purchasing patterns and whatever next) to build profiles to then target further information when presenting to them. Maybe it may even become a turbo powered calendar2.0 (calendar3.0!) system showing what's hip and happening according to an algorithm based profile...any thing is possible!
Alumni Ideas for Mannheim Business School
Below I have listed some things that are done in other schools around the world. The issue lies in that being a German program we need to match the cultures of our bigger and older US and UK counterparts with that of the German culture. I don't know what that necessarily is. Thus one suggestion has been to arrange a Stammtisch style event. It brings together the idea of networking and community of common purpose together with the German tradition. At this moment, I'm not all that clear on the way forward. For it to work there needs to be motivation for all parties.
In any case, after a brief search on the internet here are some things the Alumni departments do:
In any case, after a brief search on the internet here are some things the Alumni departments do:
Ethics
Introduction
Senior Managers have a variety of conflicting ethical challenges to identify, understand and act upon in today’s Global Banking Sector crisis.
Senior Managers have a variety of conflicting ethical challenges to identify, understand and act upon in today’s Global Banking Sector crisis.
Oberstdorf
I've pulled up quite well from skiing actually. I'm being fed silly here at Fredy's place in Neresheim but never complain about food! In fact because they are a French family, it's cheeses, wines and all things good.
Yesterday was a great day. It's been snowing here quite a bit so travelling is slow. However once i'd hired some skis and we were on the slopes the speed picked up! I'm no skier and so was more of a liability to myself and those around me. I came very close a few times to running over a few kids. Luckily the slopes weren't too busy. I had some great crashes for Fredy's benefit. He loved it. I'm glad I provided the entertainment without breaking myself. He has skiied there often and is a great skier so I think it was nice but a little boring. Some patches were very icy but on the whole the snow was pretty good. Fred gave me some pointers and I think I improved throughout the day. I need a couple weeks more skiing and i'll be a gun! Considering i've only done 4 days skiing in my life and came home in one piece I did ok!
We skiied at a place called Fellhorn, near the village of Oberstodorf. It's right on the southern border of Germany to Austria. We literally went from Germany to Austria as we went around the ski area! The views from the top were superb. There was a layer of cloud about half way up the mountains so above that we were in sunlight - and actually got a little bit sunbburnt! Also a novelty! Because it was a Friday there weren't too many people on the slopes or waiting for the lift or waiting for lunch (it meant I could eat my Leberknoedelsupppe in peace!).
After the lifts closed (4:30) we skiied all the way down, or in my case, skiied, crashed, skiied, crashed etc all the way down for a beer at a snow bar. Happy days!
Yesterday was a great day. It's been snowing here quite a bit so travelling is slow. However once i'd hired some skis and we were on the slopes the speed picked up! I'm no skier and so was more of a liability to myself and those around me. I came very close a few times to running over a few kids. Luckily the slopes weren't too busy. I had some great crashes for Fredy's benefit. He loved it. I'm glad I provided the entertainment without breaking myself. He has skiied there often and is a great skier so I think it was nice but a little boring. Some patches were very icy but on the whole the snow was pretty good. Fred gave me some pointers and I think I improved throughout the day. I need a couple weeks more skiing and i'll be a gun! Considering i've only done 4 days skiing in my life and came home in one piece I did ok!
We skiied at a place called Fellhorn, near the village of Oberstodorf. It's right on the southern border of Germany to Austria. We literally went from Germany to Austria as we went around the ski area! The views from the top were superb. There was a layer of cloud about half way up the mountains so above that we were in sunlight - and actually got a little bit sunbburnt! Also a novelty! Because it was a Friday there weren't too many people on the slopes or waiting for the lift or waiting for lunch (it meant I could eat my Leberknoedelsupppe in peace!).
After the lifts closed (4:30) we skiied all the way down, or in my case, skiied, crashed, skiied, crashed etc all the way down for a beer at a snow bar. Happy days!
Contact Points
Adrian Oest
Email: ajoest@gmail.com
Email: adrian.oest@mba-mannheim.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ajoest
Skype: ajoest
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#/ajoest
Blog: http://ajoest@blogspot.com/
Xing: https://www.xing.com/profile/Adrian_Oest
LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ajoest
Webpage: http://ajoest.googlepages.com/home
It's a bit ridiculous really...but drop my a line anyway!
Email: ajoest@gmail.com
Email: adrian.oest@mba-mannheim.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ajoest
Skype: ajoest
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#/ajoest
Blog: http://ajoest@blogspot.com/
Xing: https://www.xing.com/profile/Adrian_Oest
LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ajoest
Webpage: http://ajoest.googlepages.com/home
It's a bit ridiculous really...but drop my a line anyway!
Christmas - New Years 2009 - 2010
Just some notes.
Photos from assorted cameras are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ajoest/ChristmasAndNewYears20092010#
Arrived Christmas Eve at Luton from Zurich with Patty, caught the bus to Oxford and got picked up by Tim to be taken 'home' to Merton.
Photos from assorted cameras are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ajoest/ChristmasAndNewYears20092010#
Arrived Christmas Eve at Luton from Zurich with Patty, caught the bus to Oxford and got picked up by Tim to be taken 'home' to Merton.
The Term - Term 1 - MBS MBA09
Before the next term starts I thought i'd write down some comments from Term 1. Being 'the baptism of fire' that it was in the sense of ramping up our academic lives again there are many things to talk about. So many issues arose over the term but as I write nearly a fortnight after exams finished many of the small issues fade away. The issues at the time seemed to be really major at the time but time has put everything into better perspective.
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