Issues & Concern of Adopting Social Networks

Lecture Reflection
Pre Recorded Lecture: Web 2.0: Issues and Concerns in Deploying, Managing, and Securing Social Media Applications.

This lecture presents a lot of issues relating to adoption of Social Networks in addition to adoption of IT systems. It is human nature to resist change in any form. So no wonder people in general will always be hesitant to adopt any new technology be it in IT or Social Networks in an organization or in personal life.

An organization's efforts to develop social networks can better serve the purpose by understanding what kind of relationship you want to develop with your customers. There is a serious need to understand the kind of audience you want to capture by understanding their behaviours and then tailoring the social strategy based on the target audience's profile.

My personal experience with Second Life has been very similar to some of the points presented in this lecture. I am definitely not one of the early adopters. I like to wait and watch to see if it's worth delving into. Well, I had to jump into Second Life because of my class needs, so right there I was very cautious to begin with since I was "Required to". And there can be similar reactions in an organizational setting as well, when employees are "Required to" to adopt new technologies. There is also a learning curve involved with any new change. With Second Life I had to sort of learn to walk all over again. And it was not just that, I am still fumbling around in Second Life just like a lot other people. And in today's world, technology is constantly changing and keeping up with it can sometimes be very tiresome.

Second Life is fun no doubt but there is also a little bit of frustration involved, since I am yet to learn everything and feel comfortable. Sometimes it's also the reason I avoid going in because it's time consuming. Not to say that it doesn't have it's advantages - it certainly has a ton of those, but there are issues as well. Like the lecture points out a deeper understanding of the target audience might help reduce some of the issues related to adoption of Social Media.