Off the Grid

My husband got me a cell-phone to replace my iPhone 3G that, after more than three years of use, has a died on me. Like many with of you who use a smart phone, I was so tethered to this technology. So much so that the convenience and knowledge-at-your-fingertips capability in a smart phone have been fully integrated into my daily routine.

The replacement phone I asked my husband to get for me was this AT&T phone. I know what you're thinking... But, the reasoning going into getting this phone is not the issue at-hand. My experience of switching to one after years of being spoiled by a smart phone is.

Being Off the Grid:
It was... well, BASIC: no camera, no social media on-the-go, no traffic, no maps/GPS, no games, no smart web-browsing, and no e-mail among many other spiffy apps. But it does take and make calls or text messages (side note: even my technologically-challenged dad uses a cell-phone more advanced than this)! For many people, the only time they are "off the grid" is when they're sleeping. For me, once I shutdown my work computer, I'm basically "off the grid."

For the first month, I felt like I was like a drug addict going through terrible withdrawal symptoms. On numerous occasions, I find myself pulling my hair out in the car when I forgot that I didn't have google maps on my phone to figure out the traffic or find the number to a restaurant to call in my order in advance. On another instance, I wanted to take a photo to post on Facebook and tweet about it, but the phone nonchalantly said, "Sorry, no can't do!" to my highly disappointed face.

I'm now two months off the grid. I've been sharing my personal life less in cyberspace. I suppose I have less to worry about Internet Privacy and a target for Online Behavior Advertising. Essentially, I have become e-marketers' biggest challenge: The un-reachable "Adult 18-34" customer in mobile marketing.

I've learned to get back to living like the days before Steve Jobs enlightened us with gadgets we didn't know we needed.  Am I happier off the grid? I think I have more time to focus on the things happening around me, rather than trying to find out what's happening elsewhere with my friends.

If you want to give more focus to the present, the here, and the now... getting off your smart phone might be a smart thing to do. Or not?

A Creative Challenge

One of the courses that I had just completed this quarter is the Marketing Communications and Persuasive Messages. The goal is simple: Your message should make people do what you want them to do. Whether it is a written letter, live presentation, or a message on a video, the person who initiated that message always wants to persuade you to believe in what they're communicating.

I'd like to share with you one of my assignments in this course. The task is to create a persuasive video, no more than 90 seconds long, and it can't be text-heavy. Here's what I submitted. :)

Well, what do you think?

Two Sides to KONY 2012

You might have heard about Joseph Kony and the California filmmaker who created a documentary about the plight of the Acholi people--the so-called "Invisible Children." 

View the video to hear his side of the story...

Touching and heart-breaking, isn't it?
On the flip-side, someone is courageous enough to shed some light on the other side of the story. Here's an excerpt from her blog that you can read in full if you click here:


"Firstly, I would like to question your timing of this KONY 2012 crusade in Uganda when most of the violence from Joseph Kony and the LRA (The Lord’s Resistance Army) has subsided in Uganda in the past 5 years. The LRA has moved onto neighboring countries like the DRC and Sudan. Why are you not urging action in the countries he is currently in? Why are you worried about Kony all of a sudden when Ugandans are not at this present moment?

This grossly illogical timing and statements on your website such as “Click here to buy your KONY 2012 products” makes me believe that the timing has more to do with your commercial interests than humanitarian interests. With the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and the waning interest in Invisible Children, it seems to be perfect timing to start a crusade. I also must add at this point how much it personally disgusts me the way in which you have commercialized a conflict in which thousands of people have died."

As a former journalist, I used to be quick to jump to conclusions under the pressure of meeting news deadlines. This one's the good guy, that one's the bad guy, and that's the victim. But life experiences have taught me that it isn't always that obvious. There is a lot of gray areas in life and, especially, socio-political issues. 

I don't know who is telling the truth in the case of Kony 2012. But I believe we owe it to ourselves to not just accept whatever the media fed to us as the absolute truth. We need to do our own critical thinking and fact finding instead of having political pundits and so-called 'experts' do the thinking for us.