Happy Holidays.

The holiday season is a time to give thanks and appreciate the goodness of family and friends. Every Christmas, my family sends out greetings card with a picture of me and my sister to our family and friends, as a way to touch base and catch up. Although our hectic lives do not allow for everyone to come together during the holiday season,  this picture is a symbol of our love and holiday wishes.. By Christmas day, my house is typically filled with cards from out closest family and friends, in addition to significant others that my family has not spoken to in years.  This is an example of how greeting cards are a medium, as they are used to communicate a message or show thoughtfulness. Cards can be used to relay a multitude of messages, as they are sent to show love, express sympathy, birthday wishes, or wedding praise.. As McCluhan states, “media is the message”. Comparatively, cards spark emotions and relay messages that sometimes cannot be spoken in person.

In my first blog entry “Defining Media”, I spoke about media as a living breathing organism that has a perpetual circle of communication in which communication is passed. I feel that the greeting card fully embodies this definition. Cards are a tangible form of media that can be admired and kept as a keepsake. Cards help to cherish memories and recognize mile stones in life. I feel that cards are a timeless form of media, that appeal to consumers of all ages. It will be interesting to see if cards continue to be used as frequently in the next 20 years, considering the influx of technology. Many people today opt to send e-cards via email, which could drastically decrease the amount of cards sent in years to come. 

Avatars in the Workplace.

This semester I am taking a Human Resource Management course, where we are learning about how jobs use simulation programs to train employees for jobs. We recently did a case study about how IBM is creating management games to sell to companies in order to train their employees how act and react in certain situations in the workplace. This video game called Innov8, creates an avatar in which employees use to guide through game. IBM states that this game is designed to help tech managers understand the roles of businesspeople, where players navigate through a virtual business unit to test their skills at ventures, including redesigning a call center, opening a brokerage account, or processing an insurance claim. There are many questions and doubts surrounding the implementation of such programs in the work place. Many have posed the question as to why the world’s most buttoned-down organizations are encouraging its people and customers to play games?  IBM supports that the skills used and acquired through playing video games, such as World of Warcraft can be helpful when managing modern multinationals. IBM’s research has shown that those who are deeply immersed in online world that link millions of players were ideally suited to manage in the new millennium, as they were skilled at gathering information, making strategic decisions, and moving on to new challenges quickly. Although some research supports the use of gaming for learning purposes in the workplace, there will always be challenges to such data. I believe that tailoring simulations to specific jobs that include missions and scenarios that relate directly to the position can be useful for employees. Although media gaming platform is typically used for pure enjoyment, this is one example that shows how games can help acquire specific skills for the workplace. There will always be speculations about video game relevance, but could be useful when used effectively.  

Kinect.

Microsoft has recently released a new gaming add-on for the XBox that has literally made McLuhan’s observation of the media being an “extension of man” a reality. This console, Microsoft’s Kinect, reads body movement and does not require any remote controls. A camera reads the individual’s body movements and transfers them into characters in the game. Therefore, the body literally controls the media and movement that are on the television screen. A player’s every physical movement is relayed on the screen through a camera. CNN reports that the Kinect is part of a new wave of “gesture-based” technologies that are soon coming to the market. This technological movement will make human actions and reactions a reality though mediums, bridging the gap between media forms and their users. McLuhan writes that “That our human senses, of which all media are extensions, are also fixed charges on our personal energies, and that they also configure the awareness and experience of each one of us…” The Kinect is able to embody this statement, through its interactive technologies and allows users with the ability to control the experience of the media. The question can now be posed as to how successful this new add-on will be. Forcing players to deviate from controller use may cause some users to be turned-off by this product. This may take some adjusting but with time new technologies like the Kinect could truly revitalize the future of the media. This presents the endless possibilities of having television and computers that do not require key boards or remote controls, but are purely controlled by human movement. Human movements have the potential to control future development of new mediums.