Complaining about work on social media is like farting in an elevator. You can't escape the fact that you did it.

One morning I switched on my computer to find this series of status updates at the top of my Facebook (Fb) Newsfeed:

• My boss calls me while I shower, she calls while I brush my teeth and pack my lunch, then I am trying to drive and she calls me again, so I pull over and try to talk to her, but she screams at me and hangs up a few times without telling me why she is flipping out. "WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?!!!"…
• Two more days of being bludgeoned before the weekend arrives...in my next life I would prefer to have more choices...
• She's gotten into the habit of abusing me, but since she pays me I am not allowed to complain. I think I need to start going home and being unable to work when she treats me too badly, because this shit will kill me. Must take stand, to preserve so-called sanity...

This old friend of mine, Robin*, was obviously disgruntled and feeling trapped by her chosen work. So much that she had to vent on social media. I sent her a concerned message about her tirade. In the end I had to ask “...are you sure you want to voice your disdain for your boss/job on the world wide web?”

I felt that I had to respond to her. This woman is my friend, and I’ve seen the worst case scenario play out in two similar situations. Individuals, friends of mine, have lost jobs in their respective fields after badmouthing their direct supervisor or company on Facebook. One of these has not been able to get another position in his field.

A Little Perspective

Of course, we should have the freedom to badmouth whomever we choose when speaking to individual peer networks. However, the internet is a complex arena where private conversation is concerned; Facebook doubly so:

If your privacy settings are set to only share your content with your peer network, you have a strong layer of protection from the rest of the web. But, ask yourself, “Do my ‘friends’ also protect their comments, shares, likes, and updates with the same settings?” Maybe some do, but definitely not all of them…

Once your friend comments on your negative work-related update, or shares it, it belongs to them and can appear to everyone who follows them. If they have an 'open’ profile then anyone who finds them on the internet can view their Fb activity—without even logging in!

To gauge whether you may potentially face negative repercussions at work answer this question, are any of your Fb friends also your coworkers, or close friends of your co-workers? If you’re not sure don’t risk your job by bitching unfettered on social media!

An Unforeseen Repercussion

Back when I was in grad school, a fellow student was going through a stressful time at work. In Fb status updates she told the world daily, that she hated her boss, her job, coworkers, and the company.

On one occasion I even commented that she was being harsh. She didn't care, she had been interviewing regularly and was preparing to accept an offer. Our paths crossed again three years later. I was tasked with vetting graphic designer resumes for an open position in my company and this woman applied. The memory of those graphic rants about the past job jumped immediately to mind. How long would it take her to become disenchanted before social media mudslinging began? Could I trust her not to badmouth my organization and friends online? Could I  risk unleashing her on my beloved organization? She did not get an interview.

Back to Robin…

She immediately responded to my note with this: “Guess who doesn’t care…Maybe I will get fired….if she's not gonna pretend she's nice and reasonable, I'm not either.”

I get it, she hates her job and plans to be fired. She’ll have the opportunity to find another job—and hopefully have a more fulfilling experience. Hopefully, when she is back on the job market she won't be applying with or interviewing with anyone who has had to read these hyper-negative status updates about her current boss.


*Her name’s not Robin
Reprinted: Still relevant...updated from the original—to accommodate recent Fb privacy settings... 

In my new role as instructional yadda yadda, I have had the opportunity to oversee the final touches on the university's recording studio...and in doing that, to build relationships!

 To that end, my team and another on campus will be hosting a multimedia open house later this semester--on the cheap.

We're working together to plan the events, activities, and promotions. For me it's imperative to get all of my work on this project done and dusted before the end of the month, as I will be otherwise indisposed for most of early April.

Detail of my sketches.

It's crunch time right now! However, I want to take a few moments to share my design process for these promotions. It's a bit elementary for seasoned designers--or in-house designers even--to develop a full, comprehensive creative brief. And unnatural for a team of 1, but as I'm partnering with others on campus, I had to spell out the projects, rationales, and various media by using a creative brief. And to be honese, it has helped me to focus more quickly that usual, for this period of hard work. After sharing the brief and getting team ideas on tweaks, I've begun to craft the various promotional messages (copy) and layout the various media (signage, digital and otherwise, a couple website updates that require custom photography and writing, and a small run of elegant printed invitations).

Here's where I went with the invites.

Mind you: we'll be printing and finishing, and delivering these babies by hand, and on the cheap. So I opted for B/W with no bleeds. This almost reminds me of a typography project that I've given students in the past--to make them think hard about their design decisions. Pictured is one of about 8 design solutions that I explored.

Cheers, S

It’s been 6 months, and time to revisit the communications plan in the Office of Academic Technology Services (ATS). The team has been fighting an uphill battle (one with forward progress, at least) to grow their client base, and educate constituents about our proficiencies, resources, and services.

My brain has been racked for the past couple weeks, in anticipation of today’s team meeting: I’d be unveiling a new tagline and marketing materials that grow on the ones developed about half a year ago. Well, the reception was good. And the ATS team is ready for the continued roll-out. Picture it:

Academic Technology Services: Learn. Create. Grow

It builds back from our university mission and tagline; Growing the Future. Leading the World.

Click on a thumbnail to view full-sized "LEARN." poster:

1. Ditch the Box: technology advances mean that we can leave the large portfolio case at home. Especially since a printed book that outlines your best works just as well. Some designers have ditched print altogether and showcase digital media samples; bringing a tablet/laptop on which to show their work. This can still allow for interactivity, if you design the digital portfolio with this built in
2. Simplicity. Simplify. Simple: use an uncluttered simple layout.
3. Brand Consistency is key. Keep the look of all consistent: the book, the leave behind, the resume, cover letter and business card.
4. Get Feedback: once you’ve settled on your designs find out from peers, industry professions and art directors what they think.
5. Leave a Leave Behind: after a stellar interview and portfolio review, you must put something in the interviewer's hand that will remind them of your fabulous self once you've gone. You want them to reach for their phone (or whatever) and have their hand linger over your leave behind...instead of making tha call they pick up your designed piece and handle it. At they review they can't help but ponder how awesome it would be to have someone with your skill, talent and creativity working on heir team... they could finally get "X" done right, etc.

Get some design inspiration from Pinterest

Articles outlining the Digital Divide began appearing in Ed Tech journals a few years back but I could not get a clear understanding of what it really was. At the time I worked in a small private university, with less than 20% financial aid kids and less than 14% minorities; our constituents were the direct heritors of the positive side of the divide. While the digital divide was definitely happening, it was happening a long way away.

HERE'S WHAT I DID KNOW

At that time, as now:

• Practically all college students had smart phones, 
• Many students that I encountered opted to complete homework (writing papers and discussion posts, etc.) using their phones, and 
• Every poor person I encountered in Baltimore owned a smart phone.

I simply conflated the groups to develop my opinions on the subject; poor, inner-city black, students. Embarrassed, I recall once saying to my director, “The digital divide is largely becoming a myth…today more students than not [particularly poor inner city students] have access to the internet, online tools, and applications to get schoolwork done.” While superficially true, I had no empirical evidence of what poor kids were actually doing.



Impecunious youth at our private university were the ones who had to get work study jobs as part of their financial aid packages, but even they had grown up with the web at home.




It didn’t help my understanding not personally knowing people living in poverty and unable to afford the supremely necessary home computer. I simply could not relate.

A Commodore 64

As a kid of the 80s, I got my first computer at age 8—about a decade before computers became a necessary accessory for US households. My sister and I programmed computer games—in Basic—for fun. In high school and college I always had both a Mac and Windows computer on which to work—as a graphic designer and artist having both was a personal imperative. Between undergrad and graduate schools I purchased, used, and equipped with the appropriate software packages, a total of four personal computers (two Mac, two Windows).

Like I said, I didn’t know. And that was the missing piece in my puzzle.

Today, I work at a state school; a  public, historically black university with over 80% of its students in receipt of financial aid. The majority of whom are black Americans, a vast majority of those from the Baltimore area, and many of whom are using their first personal computers, ever.

Back in the private university world of privilege, undergraduate students—who opt to complete homework on their phones grew up with desktops, laptops, and tablets in houses with secure internet access, wired and wireless routers, and monthly bills that were paid on time. They had the opportunity to bring their own laptops to schools that boasted open WiFi, or were given computers on which to work, by their schools. The poor Baltimore kids, some the first in their families to go to college, never had an equivalent or anything close. Even though today all of these kids have smart phones that can allow them to complete projects and do research on the fly, only the first group actually takes advantage of that fact.

On the wrong side of the chasm that we call the digital divide are the poorer, blacker students.

Personal Interactions with  Students Opened my Eyes

NADIA, CLASS OF '17

My department shares an office with the university’s library tech support team. Often students walk in with a computer or network problem. Rather than have them wait for one of the two technicians or leave a message, I usually field the easier questions to help get students back to the two things I’ve always taken for granted, understanding and access [to the computer].

On the morning before our first and only snow day of the year a young woman came in asking for help to install and start up Skype. She was scheduled to have the first important interview of her career on the following day. Nutrition and Dietetics undergrads are required to complete a six-month, 40-hour per week internship before they sit their certification exam. This university senior was nervous and excited for the upcoming virtual meeting.

Her problem was that Skype was hanging up instead of starting quickly, as it had earlier. I ordered her to grab a seat at the coffee table, plug in the power cable, and start up her Macbook while I finished writing an email at my desk.

As she did this, I informed her that one way to avoid any issues with virtual meetings was to “ALWAYS use a wired connection, rather than rely on WiFi.”


" What do you mean by wired connections...I don't understand," she replied.

I explained what an Ethernet cable was and where to plug it in. She was still confused.

Admittedly, a bit perturbed, I asked her how she accessed the internet at her off-campus apartment. In her entire life, she had only ever used a library computer or WiFi hotspot from a phone to get online, never having a secure wired internet connection in her own home.

Understanding her predicament, I asked a few probing questions while I connected my spare Ethernet cable to her laptop and played with the Skype application. I started and restarted Skype, “have you used Skype on your computer—your phone—another campus computer before…experienced any similar problem…do you ever change network settings…do you have a login password for this Mac…what time is the interview…” etc. While we worked we also talked about her ambitions for the interview and beyond.

Within minutes I showed her how to see and edit her network settings, adjust and test her audio, uninstall and reinstall the Skype app (we got it working), and then gave a few tips about what to do during the interview to avoid technical snags.

This is a young woman who has a 3.5 GPA, and a passion for working with children suffering rare genetic disorders. She has excelled in a difficult educational field and has applied to one of the more competitive internships for her major—accepting under 50 students per year, nationwide. In her undergraduate tenure she has worked at the campus library, become well-respected in the Mathematics department (she told me that they would loan her of one of their laptops to take home for a backup interview computer), and has developed larger ambitions for a doctorate in the field of public health. If anyone does, this woman deserves every opportunity to succeed.

MICHAEL, CLASS OF '18

A few days earlier, a young man came to my office with a problem, his professor had recently posted the weekly quiz online, but his computer did not allow him to download the necessary test-taking plugin. Please recall that I’m not tech support and I don’t actually know the precise fix for this problem. However, it’s something that has slowed my progress in the past. I suggested to him that the Windows firewall settings might need to be changed to allow the software download. An easy fix, if it works.

This young man did not have his computer with him, so I queried him more about the error messages then I gave him the number for the help desk and told him to call them while at his computer—he could then relay the specific errors or prompts to the Help Desk agent in real time.

The next day he returned to my office with his laptop and asked for my assistance. Normally I would have handed him my phone and restated my directive from the previous day, but the touchscreen laptop in his hand was the Toshiba Satellite, my latest Windows laptop, and frankly the bane of my existence (it’s not great). Rather than my sending him to the experts, we walked through a solution together. My assumption was right, a quick adjustment to his settings allowed download of the application.

On his way out, this third year student thanked me profusely and remarked in the doorway, “this is my first computer, y’know.” My heart melted for him. In another year he would enter the world of work (or graduate school) with only a 12-month experience in working with and trouble shooting his own personal computer.

The impact of his innocuous statement hit me. This thing—that I and a large segment of Americas youth take for granted—is foreign, a difficult concept, a largely unknown and misunderstood commodity to many poor black students.

AT LAST I UNDERSTAND

Now, as back then, practically all students have smartphones, but the poor ones, the black ones, the ones from underprivileged Baltimore have never had a computer at home on which to write a paper, use the calculator app, or plagiarize from Wikipedia. So, they never developed the skills to transform their powerful smartphone into a powerful educational tool. They rarely make the leap to write that paper in Word 365 or Google Docs, using their thumbs and built-in spell check.

The Digital Divide is real. And it’s growing.

Your Website Vs. Social Media Presence


Social media platforms are great for building community and knowledge of your goods, services, brand...but you don't own or control the platform. We'r all aware of the ever-changing landscape of social media: look at how 'groups', 'pages', 'individual' Facebook account (sharing and privacy) rules have changed in the past few years. Users get very little input on how these evolve.

A website allows you to market yourself on your own terms. On your own site you get to:

• set rules and guidelines for how you share content
• have and build direct relationships with your audience
• organize your branding content how you want  it organized

Roberto Blake gives a lot of food for thought on the topic: