Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Social Media Tools

The first site I decided to check out was this one: https://blog.aids.gov/. This is a blog site for individuals living with HIV, Policies &Programs, Research, New Media, and Global information. I chose this site since AIDS/HIV I believe is something that has touched at least all of us in one form or another. I thought it would be interesting to look into a site that captures many of the things going on in the world about it. There is a video and a blog about the International AIDS conference that was actually held 7/22/2014. Social media was used also to present the conference. Here is a excerpt from the article about the conference and using social media, If you’ve been following our blog and social media channels this week, you’ve likely noticed we’re producing videos from the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014) Exit Disclaimer. Starting on Sunday morning with a message from Dr. Fauci, and continuing throughout the week with highlights from Dr. Ron Valdiserri, Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, Ambassador Deborah Birx, and other senior officials, we are working with to bring some of the conference to you.We know online videos are increasing in popularity. In fact, a recent Pew report found that 78% of online adults watch or download videos Exit Disclaimer [PDF 612KB]. By producing videos and allowing people like Dr. Fauci, Dr. Dieffenbach, and others to share their observations in their own words, we hope to bring the conference a little bit closer to home. (blod.AIDS.gov 2014).

I chose texting as the next option on this site, http://www.texting4health.org/, texting4health I found to be very interesting. This concept takes something that majority of people around the world do and implements it into saving lives. The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab hosted “Texting4Health,” the premiere conference on how mobile text messaging can promote better health. This topic matters because texting is the only viable interactive channel for reaching people on a mass scale around the world (http://www.texting4health.org/ 2014).

The next link I clicked on was the mobile app, I used this site http://www.aids.gov/. This site gives you a wealth of information on AIDS/HIV, it even gives you where test locations are. I think that the mobile and text applications would reach a large majority of people on a grand scale, many people around the world have smartphones. We are attached to our phones at the hip, also we know if we are looking for something such as an HIV/AIDS testing location we are using something that is confindential. Sometimes it's hard for people to pick up the phone, but simply receiving a text message to locations can be a very handy tool.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Indie Bookstore Rehires Four Employess they fired for wanting a Union

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/04/book-culture-fired-workers_n_5558728.html?ir=Business


"We have re-hired all four store managers who were terminated last week," the Book Culture statement read. "There is no longer a labor dispute. Book Culture has now recognized the RWDSU as the union representing our employees. We are respectful of the rights of our employees to unionize and of the views of our customers in the community and [nearby Columbia University]." I found this line to be pretty interesting considering that these employees were fired for exercising their rights to have a Union. In the article it stated that the 5 total were promoted to "manager" in title only which made it against company policy to participate in a Union. I looked around online using Google and I found 724,000 threads on the subject as well as the company which lead me to believe that the story had to be true. There were posts on Facebook about it, on a site Democratic Underground.com, on lockerdome.com as well as numerous other sites. Four out of the five employees excepted their jobs back. I would just wonder if I would want to work for a company that will not respect my rights to want to have a Union. I feel overall the story and the sources are fairly legit. They used firsthand accounts, i.e the workers and even the company reps. The main motive was to let the public know what happened to these workers.