Supakorn Pothong Blog

              In my opinion, the perspective on the use and effectiveness of social media from the people in different generations should be different. People from different generations have different sets of interest activities so their opportunity or necessity in using social media will also be different. For example, one from the Y generation, who is a college student or an entry level employee, should have more opportunities to use social network for researching or communicating with their co-workers, customers, family members and friends, than one from Boomer generation, a retiree. This might be because older generation does not require doing any business-related researches or contact that much. What I mentioned here does not mean that Boomer-generation person does not use any social media. They might use it for other purposes other than business- or academic- related activities such as personal vacation, etc. My aunt’s example is a very good scenario to demonstrate my statement.

              The following is the interview between my aunt, Mrs. Chommsri Vichitlakakarn, and me.  She had been working at United Nation in Thailand until her retirement four years ago. Nowadays, she spends most of her time with her family and enjoys doing her favorite activities including traveling with her husband.

QUESTION:    When were you born? or What is your generation?

ANSWER:        I was born on 19 May 1947 (64 years old) and I am a BOOMER ….born after World War II.

QUESTION:    What activities you do most online?

ANSWER:        Activities I do most online…….mainly e-mail to communicate with friends, family members. Sometimes, I do internet to search for information on several subjects, making hotel bookings for domestic and international trips.  For example, searching for info on car rental and accommodation for New Zealand trip in March and April 2011; and also hotel bookings and train schedules for our next trip to Europe in August 2011.  Next Monday,  1 August , Your uncle and I will leave for Europe and will return on 30 August.

QUESTION:    Do you think social media is good for children?

ANSWER:        Do I think social media is good for children?   Social Media means online communication using web-based and mobile technologies that enable users to have interactive dialogue on several subjects.  It will depend on what kind for information and subjects of interest that these children learn and exchange on social network.  Children may need supervision or guidance when using social media.  Also, they may spend too much time on computer rather than spending time with their family and friends.

QUESTION:    What are your perspectives on the use of social media?

ANSWER:       My perspectives on the use of social media…     I think social media is now very popular and many people are using it to update their life and also to keep track with friends.  However, some postings are improper.  Therefore, one must be careful and prudent when using the social media.  For myself, I go to facebooks of family members only and I don’t have one of my own.

              As you can see from the interview above, even though my aunt is from Boomer generation but she still uses social network to communicate with her friends and family members who live in other countries and searches for information/subject she is interested in. When comparing her situation with myself who from generation Y, I still have more opportunity to use social media than her because I used social media as a main tool to do research for my master degree studies, communicate with my family and friends through facebook, look for jobs, etc…

              In conclusion, people from different generations will have different perspectives/purposes toward the use and effectiveness of social media. This might be due to their different interest activities. Not only is the generation a main factor influencing the different perspectives of use and effectiveness of social media, but individual characteristics/attitudes play a major role to make them think differently as well.

From the case studies, you will see that all three campaigns are using social media to be a main tool for communicating among members and it can also be used for promoting the campaigns to public.

1. Charleston Parks Conservancy

This non-profits organization is founded for increasing the quality, awareness, appreciation and usage of Charleston’s parks and greenspaces [1]. One way that members can communicate one another is by social network which lets them to instantaneously receive and send most reason information. The social network platforms that they use are facebook, twitter, YouTube, etc… The format of information includes statements, pictures, or videos. Users can use that information to apply and develop the park in Charleston area. If every city in the world has a campaign like this there should be able to increase the green area for the world population.

1. Random Buzzers

This campaign is another example that uses the social media for communication. In the website they mention that “Random Buzzers is a fun, safe place for readers and writers to gather and share their favorite reads, chat with authors, win books, share reviews and tons of other fun stuff!” The campaign groups people who are interested in the same thing together. This concept is called “Fan Page”. The benefit of the fan page is that we can contact and exchange the information with the expertise directly.

1. Case study “ROI of Social Media Campaign for SeaWorld San Antonio”

This campaign uses social network to promote their organization. Nowadays many famous companies begin to use social media to be a main tool to promote their products because it works. I already discussed about this topic on my Video Statement Blog (Assignment 2). See the link below.

http://blog.uta.edu/~sxp4153/2011/07/18/assignment-2/

Reference

[1] http://www.charlestonparksconservancy.org/who_we_are/mission/

Is social media the most effective way to promote your products?

In my opinion, social media should be the best way to promote your product at this moment. Nowadays, most people use internet for communication due to the conveniency of internet access in variety of devices especially mobile phones or computers. Moreover, there are numerous numbers of social media platforms to choose from which allow us to get in touch with other people in many different features.

Internet is a major communication channel for the world’s population these days. This link http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm shows that in 2011, more than 2 thousands million people around the world are using internet for communication and most of them are Asians and Europeans.

One of the reasons why there are increasing numbers of people using the internet is because of the much-more availability of internet-enabled devices including smart phones, and computers in the market. This following link shows that there are so many people are using those devices in daily basis http://macfeng.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/mobile-marketing/ . The video clip below introduces iPad 2 which is one of the most up-to-date electronic devices. With its incredible design, we can easily connect to the internet and download applications, music, movie, etc… with just a touch of finger.

iPad 2

Not only are there so many devices for us to select but there are also many social media platforms that were developed for different business purposes. These different platforms give users options to select the right platform that best fits for them. The communication media includes text, photos, videos, chat and blog. This link http://60secondmarketer.com/blog/2010/04/09/top-52-social-media-platforms/ shows the top 60 Social Media Platforms that every marketers should know about. The video clip below is the demonstration that shows one of the social media platforms called Goggle plus. You can see that this platform makes it easy for us to connect with your friends or family.

google plus

From the video clip below Michelle Pack, Hughes Public Relations, mentions that we can use social media to sale products because people spend a significant amount of time on the internet.

Michelle

January 11st is the day of last tour of our SUS5304 class. We went to Texas Instruments and PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay North America Headquarters. At Texas Instruments, we were given a presentation from Mr. Paul Westbrook , Sustainability Development manager and Mr. Dablo Ruiz, RFAB Facilities about their LEED gold certified building and How they manage their company to be sustainably. At PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay North America Headquarters, we were given a presentation from Mr. Gorge Guck, Director of Facilities and Corporate Services, about how PepsiCo be only one LEED gold certified EB headquarter in Texas and of twelve of those in the United States.

The Sustainability Ideas from TI [1]
1. Installing the white roof to reflect the sunlight
2. Digging the pond to keep the rain to use for the landscape
3. Recycling almost 90 percent of non-industrial waste worldwide
4. Reusing water about 1.5 billion gallon annually
5. Restoring to native prairie grass in the area to minimize irrigation and provide biodiversity
6. Covered parking for bicycles and showers/ lockers encourage alternate transportation
7. Using solar bollards guild the way in the night time

The Sustainability Ideas from PepsiCo [2]
1. Using the sun’s light to heat all the hot water in the headquarter
2. Applying new high efficiency chillers to saving energy and eliminate to use of harmful, ozone-depleting refrigerants
3. Using lighting control system to turn off the lights when there is enough sunlight
4. Landscaping with native and adaptive plants to reduced water need and impedes soil erosion
5. Recycling more than 70 percent of company waste

References

[1] Paul Westbrook. “Sustainability at Texas Instrument”

[2] Gorge Guck. “PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay North America Headquarters Achieves LEED Gold Certification” http://www.fritolay.com/about-us/press-release-20091021.html. 1/15/11

The last Saturday (1/8/11 ) is one of my wonderful days because I went to tour at two terrific places for my class. The first place where we went to is Park Seventeen building in downtown Dallas. We met Mr. Jackson Murphy of Green Bean Analysis, and tour his LEED Gold certified interiors office in Park Saventeen building which is also LEED Gold certified. The second place where we went to is Trinity River Audubon Center at which Mr. Zeshan N. Segal,education manager, brought us to look around his bird-shaped LEED Gold certifiled office building.

I got a lot of ideas from this trip. However, on this blog, I will do something different. So, instead of writing lots of descriptions for what I see, I will post lots of pictures and picture collages I made by which I believe that they will describe themselves and help you understand my points easier and faster.

Park Saventeen building in Dallas

Bike parking and locker room for people who want to save gas

Grow that plants that don't need too much water

Use the save energy lights to display the building at night time

Use the light sensor to turn on the light only when you needed

Use daylight on day-time to save energy

Recycle the trash in the office

Use energy star product

Use recycle material to make floor and counter

Trinity River Audubon Center

Celling made from recycled cotton material

Use east texas bamboo(local product) to make floor

Recycle the trash from the building

Water chiller

Trex made from recylcled milk bottles, water bottles, and sawdust, and drought-tolerent native prarie grasses

Solar panels

Use 90% post recycle steel for building frames

After we went to the first LEED Platinum certified house in Texas, we came back to meet Mr. Steve Chaney at UTA Fort Worth, another spacial speaker. Mr. Chaney is a CEA-Horticulture at Texas Agrilife Extension Service, Tarrant County. The topic of his presentation is Landscape water conservation. He explained to us that in the future we will need to use more water because of the increase population but the quantity of the water in the world will keep decreasing. The easiest and least expensive way to save the water to in the world is water conservation. On this lecture, he focused on how we do the Landscape water conservation because most water that people use in the world is used for the irrigation. There are some easy ways that we can do to conserve the water for example[1]:

1. Watering the plant from 6pm to 10am
2. Testing the soil in the garden in order to know how we should improve the quality of the soil
3. Using Mulch to protect the moisture of the soil
4. Choosing the local plant for your garden
5. Zoning your garden, put the plant that need that same amount of water in the same place
6. Using rain garden concept

Rain Garden

Mulch

When I first see this house, I suddenly recognize that I saw this house before on the internet. It is the first innovated LEED platinum house in Texas. The house is located in Fort Worth.  We went inside and met Mr. Phillip Newburn, the owner as well as the architecture of the house, and Mr. Don Ferrier, the owner of Ferrier companies building this house. The house is one-level modern house to which Mr. Newburn move-in around 2 years ago.

One of the sustainability idea that I got from touring this house is SIP (structural insulated panels). Mr. Newburn and Mr. Ferrier explained to us that the house is built by using structural insulated panels(SIP), constructed of expanded polystyrene foam insulation which is sandwiched between two sheets of oriented stand board (OSB) [1]. There are many qualifications of SIP that make the house more sustainability as listed below[1]:

1. Block exterior noise

2. Keep dust out by its tightness

3. Keep out allergens, eliminates out-gassing, and control air filtration

4. Construction is many times stronger than conventional methods

5. Superior insulation and tighter building envelope

6. Dramatic reduction in energy use, less job waste, and better utilization of material resources

Reference

[1] Ferrier Custom Homes.”Building Super Energy-Efficient Custom Homes“. www.ferrierbuilders.com. 1/11/11

Heather Ferrier is the general manager of Ferrier company whom we met at Dela pana house. Her house is located at 4232 Lovell Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76017. This house is an old house, built in 1983 and recently remodeled last year. It is such a generosity from Mr. Don Ferrier, the owner of the Ferrier companies, to tell us more about how his company build a new house and remodel the old house to be green.  I really like the idea of  mix and match the old things with the modern things. The main structure and some furniture that still looked good from the old house were kept and combine with lots of new things to make it more sustainability. The followings are some examples:

1. Using Seisco tankless water heater

2. Using life time class for roof

3. Sealing doors and windows in order to decrease air infiration

4. Spray foam 5.5″ thick for a  roof and 3.5 inch thick for a wall

5. Using energy star windows, doors and appliances

6. Recycling and reusing of scrap lumbers

etc

TCC Trinity Campus building, located in downtown Fort Worth, is truly huge and contemporary. Greg, our tour guide who works for the maintenance department since the building opened, told us that the building is used to owned by Radio Shack before TCC took over just about 2 years ago. It is a great experience taking this tour. I also got a chance to go into the unseen sections of the building.

Greg, our tour guide

There are three main sections of the building we went to:

1. Greg showed us how they control the air quality of the building. The outside air can go inside of the building but need to go through double layers of filters. The first filter is the thinner filter and the second filter is the thicker filter. The thinner filter is very easy to change and can be changed as many as needed. By changing the thinner filter more often can make the thicker filter last longer since it will not get dirty too early. The thicker filter is 12 inches long which can do a better job compared to the thinner one. Brant, our coach, told us that air quality can make the sustainability in the building because if we have a good air quality in the building, it can make people healthier and work more efficiently.

Top: Thick filter/ Bottom: Thin filter

2. He showed us how they control the temperature in the building.   The temperature in the building is controlled by using 5 water chillers. At least one of the chillers need to be run no matter how freezing outside is. This is because the heat from the human and computer server is always produced and consistently increase the temperature in the building. It is also surprisingly that the huge building like this does not necessarily require the heater systems.

Water Chillers

3. He also showed us how they generate the electricity in case of emergency. This building has 3 diesel generators to back up in case of the power outage. This systems need to be tested every two month in order to make sure they work properly.

Diesel generators

On December 28^th, 2010, we have two special speakers invited to give us lecture regarding sustainability concepts in our SUST 5304 class.

The first speaker is Mr. Jerry Burbridge, a current employeefrom U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He has an experience in real estate for 42 years.  Mr. Burbridge shows us what the sustainability standards are in U.S. government’s perspectives and how they inspect and evaluate the green building. There are three main interesting points.

1. For any building, we need to inspect all 6 sections: 4 walls, 1 roof, and 1 foundation. The similar conditions apply to a room as well. That is, for any room, the inspection processes have to be done for all 6 sections: 4 walls, 1 ceiling, and 1 floor.

2. As far as sustainable-oriented electronic devices are concerns, they should not be too new since if they occur to have some problems, it will be pretty hard to find someone to fix. We should use common devices that is universal which everybody knows and easy to fix.

3. It is required that every U.S. government buildings need to be at least LEED silver certified.

The second speaker is Mr. Jim Johnson, a director of Downtown Deverlopment for downtown Fort Worth. Mr. Jim emphasized the sustainability for the city. He told us that to develop the sustainable city; we need to consider three things as follows:

1. Transportation Systems

2. Building codes

3. Zoning

His job is to manage those three things in the city in the best (sustainable) way in order to get the most of the area and at the same time, conserve the environment.