The video presentation from Neil Perkins was great!

Neil started with an interactive short history of how long some of the tech we use every day and take for granted. I had pen and pad at the ready on noted some of the historic moments in our tech history.

1. 1971 – 1st email was sent using ARPANET, the predecessor of what we know today as the Internet.
2. 1978 – 1st email spam was sent
3. 1990 – 1st website created
4. 1993 – 1st search engine created – W3C, then Yahoo in 1995
5. 1994 – 1st eCommerce site
6. 1994 – 1st banner ad created
7. 1995 – 1st eBay sale – a broken laser pointer
8. 1998 – Google launched
9. 2002 – 1st social network – Friendster
10. 2006 – Facebook opened to everyone
11. 2010 – Instagram launches in October and now has 100 million users

Just looking at the list as I wrote it down was quite amazing. The advances we have made in such a small amount of time. The hardware technology we now have at our fingertips and the amazing possibilities that can be created.

Neil went on to speak about Moore’s law

GAFA – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon – The ones to watch for emerging as leaders in shaping the digital tomorrow.

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Somewhat relieved that we don’t need our web cam for the Squared Online lessons I waited in anticipation for our 2nd more in-depth lesson.

The lesson involved looking at how we used technology in our daily lives. The intention was to get everyone thinking on how we use tech today and how we might use it tomorrow.

The lesson outcome was to get everyone thinking about how consumers use tech in their daily lives, who had access to their social data and how it was used. We were also asked to think about how everyone behaves differently and how this might affect an individuals digital life.

We watched a short video called Class of 2015, intended to depict a day in the digital life for students in 2015. How tech affected a digital day in the life of a student.

For your viewing pleasure below.

We were also introduced to Kiva and Kickstarter, two websites made possible using technology and innovation to help small businesses to start up or expand.

Another quite scary part of the lesson for me were the statistics on how the public perceive the use of their data and how the majority of us don’t care about it?

The Telegraph reported that three-quarters of the UK public do not care about privacy. In my opinion this is very worrying. I would imagine this is either due to lack of the public’s knowledge about the huge amount of data they create and what the web sites they use are allowed to use it for. More public awareness needs to be made about the privacy policies on social sites like Facebook and what they will be using the collected data for.

We were also asked how emerging technology would affect us in the future. Some stats below:

• 47% of people believe that technology will make life better
• 44% say it is too soon to tell
• 10% say it will make life worse

How do you think emerging technology will affect your life in the future?

• Teleporting to work?
• Time machines?
• Trains that arrive on time?

Part of the lesson resources was to look at the conversation prism, pasted below.

Conversation Prism

Homework

As part of our homework we were all set a day in my digital life, we have to create a slide to depict a day in our digital lives. A PowerPoint presentation link was given for students to add their slide and show how tech was used on a daily basis.

And no I haven’t shot my video yet and yes I am still dreading the video part of this course! Hearing my strong Essex accent makes me cringe! I will do it under duress

Here’s my slide

A Slice of my Digital Life

The post Squared Online – My Digital Life appeared first on Fish 4 Sales.

Background

I have worked successfully in the digital marketing industry for a number of years now. All of my knowledge and skills have been self taught with no formal training.

I read blogs, articles and use analytics from various sources to try to understand my clients customers and their behaviors.

Since August this year I thought it was time to gain some qualifications to prove my skills and worth to my current and perspective clients.

I manage many large pay per click campaigns so I started with the Google exams in August and qualifies a week later passing my Google Fundamentals and Advanced search certification.

I want to acquire the full set of Google certifications but with my work commitments gaining the Display and Analytics advanced exams before starting Squared Online proved too much .

1st Lesson!

With some nerves and anticipation I prepared for our 1st lesson of the new Squared Online course. Pen and pad at the ready I suddenly realised I hadn’t setup the web cam that was on the hardware list!

Spending the next 15 minutes trying frantically to unpack and get my web cam working, I realised it wasn’t necessary for the classes (to my relief) until we started the lesson.

As Squares were joining the classroom we were all getting acquainted, discussing interests and chatting in general.

We had a brief introduction to our tutors, the interface and how to use the online campus and the resources that would be used as part of our online study.

Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and WordPress seem to be the main platforms used on the course, thankfully I have accounts with all of these platforms so just a quick template change, update the details and I’m set to go!

A Q&A session finished off our 1st Squared Online class.

Overall a good experience.

Homework already!

We have a video to watch from Neil Perkins on changes in technology and behavior and the impact of change on digital. Looking forward to watching Neil’s video and acquiring a different perspective on our digital world and what influences it.

What I’d like to get from Squared Online.

I have always worked on my own, without a team to support me or bounce ideas off and gain new inspiration. Therefore I am looking forward to collaborating with other Squares from the same marketing industry.

With this in mind I am keen to support my fellow Squares and share tips and tricks with them. I would also like to learn as much as I can from Squares with experience in the digital industries I currently have little or no knowledge of.

Concerns?

A main concern of mine with the Squared Online course is having to publicly display my views on the web, something I am not used to doing on a personal level.

I post blogs, tweet and use the social platforms for clients but always masked by a business profile as opposed to a personal one.

Thanks for reading!

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