Weekly Update 3

Welcome to a week of uncovering stuff.  Really starting to dive in and beginning to find the meat of what my paper is going to talk about and focus on.  I have been basing my research aroudn the concept of:

"In what ways has technology changed the way globally woman are becoming leaders and changing to boundries of society and equality?"

Due to the nature of the topic, a lot of what I am reading is in the news.  Reports on women who life in nations where women are not given any rights, but because they learned how to use a computer and other technical skills they are able to create revenue generating ecommerce sites.  By generating a revenue not only are they able to escape from a world that is full of beatings, repression and/or punishment via death for disobaying, but they are uprising and changing the stories for societies as whole.

I began my research by digging in and finding articles about instances of what I spoke of above.  Looking at the woman who are now industry leaders in technology and the efforts they make to bring woman in to a world that was previously dominated by men. How can we globally educate and empower women to lead an industry with their innovation and show the world that no one will hold them down?

Issues: Okay so the biggest issues that the generally you find only news articles regarding this that have a clear voice.  Either the writter is happy to see the progression or they are clearly not amused that women are trying to uprise and take over the world.  Apparently to some writters when women marched and burned their bras that is where it should have ended...and now get back to the kitchen and cook us dinner.  The other issue that I am having is once you do find a good path to go down that will profile the story, struggle and/or other specific information that will show the history of their fight and uprising - it is usually in Vogue or People Magazine and relevant, ground breaking and industry leading information (or political reporcusions from their actions) are missing and all they are talking about is their shoes and what event they went to last.

Progress: I made good progress, I have an outline so I know where I am starting and when I am wanting to go.  I justneed to focus my efforts on the next coupld of weeks on getting the meat of the paper included.

Future Plan: Find more solid resources.  I may also focus sometime on digging a little deeper and trying to not so much focus on the people who have made the change but try and find someone out there who has already talked about this uprising and see if I can open a new path in my head.

Too Much Information

Hi All. Gladys Again back for week #3!

I am going to address the topic of "What was most challenging in selecting a research topic for this assignment?"  And oh boy is this a loaded question.  There is one thing that I know about myself, well actually there are many things I know about myself, and that is that I always pic topics that mean something to me in my life but that means that I will from time to time go to deep in to my topic.

This topic in specific regarding how technology is helping to drive social change in the acceptance of women in the work place and their up rise to be strong leaders is extremely personal to me.  I will begin to research something specific that supports the overall message of what I am trying to communicate to my reader, but I will click on a link to read a related topic and six hours later I am reading out different political movements and have to remember what I am writing about, and what is in scope and what is not.

I have to continually remind myself of the message that I am trying to communicate.  I do this through keeping a piece of paper with my outline, topic and thesis statement always right next to me.  This way when I take a breather from reading the reminder is always present and available to me and reminds me more often than not to get back on track.

I have always had to do this type of method to keep myself successful because once I start researching a topic I want to know everything about it.  But, there is always time for reading, epically after a time when it wont deviate from my end goal when writing a paper.

Till Next Week,
Meg

Week 01/02 Progress Report

Over the past two weeks I have set some specific goals to not only help myself stay on task but also ensure that my research paper is upheld to the highest of quality that I hold all of the work I complete too.  This means that I have to pick a topic, outline what I want to talk about, and ensure that my paper qualifies on every level for both of the classes that I am writing it for.  I think that might have been the hardest part thus far - ensuring that my topic meets and exceeds the needed qualifications for both teachers. So here is where we are so far:

Topic:   Feminism 2.0: The Strategic Use Of Technology To Globally Advance Social Equality & Change

Questions To Focus On:

• What technologies have been used?
• When did it begin?
• Who lead the movement?
• What type of change is being driven?
• What is the social equality is the focus of change on?
• Have there been any negative outcomes from the drive for this change?

Each of the questions is a starting place.  We know that there has been a woman’s movement for years in the US, but with technology it has become more of a global movement - one that the media has not publicized well on the home front.

What Issues Am I Having: Thus far the only issue that I am having is finding sources that I can actually use.  There is a lot of information out there, extremely detailed accounts and while all of the information is compelling and relevant, they are not from sources that I cannot use.  So I have had to shift and mold my way of researching this topic to get the results that I need.

Where Do I Go From Here:  My plan for the next week is to really outline my topic.  Really drive where I want the paper to begin and end and what needs to be told along the way.  I will be looking for more resources through the means that were provided to us in class, along with asking industry resources that I have available to me in order to get some real life prospective.  From there the rough draft building can begin.

Post #2 - I'm A Know It All!

Hello there again, Gladys err Meg here again!

The question that is being posed this week is what do I already know about my topic without spending anytime researching it.  Well since I am writing about the new age feminism movement and how technology is being used to progress social equality...and there are many things I already know about that topic as it is close to home for myself.

#1: Because technology is something that can be use in privacy without the need for a lot of people to know exactly what you are doing and/or where you are doing it - women in countries who previously were extremely NOT progressive about woman in the work force have recently been highly successful of starting online businesses and turning themselves in to Founder & CEO of their own companies allowing them not only the means but also unlimited resources to change their lives and situations.

#2: There is a long standing history of women taking a stand in many different manners that have lead us today.  Women have fought the battles of being allowed to vote, making a fair wage, burring their bras, and etc.  However, those events were always really highly publicized by the media.  The things that are not well known, the starting blocks if you will, tell us that it was a woman that requested the first divorce from an abusive husband, it was a woman who fought her way in to medical school in the 1800's when she was never going to be anything other than a nurse, and it was a woman who reformed the way Hollywood handled labor laws in order to protect the children who didn't have a voice that anyone would listen too of their own.

#3: With the current shift over the past decade or so of woman in the workplace and more so in the upper management level of the workplace, the shift in educational settings is changing as well.  Before in programs based on IT, Welding, Mechanical Engineering and etc, that were always taken by mostly men, women are finding their place there as well.  We are seeing them excel, we are seeing them preform at a higher level then the men in the same program and throughout their career we are seeing them surpass the male workers to take over the management positions and drive change all around them.  

This is where I am starting - but I am out of time this week - Till next time!

Meg

Post #1 - Sometimes They Call Me Gladys

Week #1 - Sometimes They Call Me Gladys

Well, hello folks Meg is back with a brand new beat!  And this time I am rappin' and writtin' about not only reading but a little thing that most people like to call research!!!  A topic that I love and find completely humorus that we need a class dedicated to...but then again, I am an old lady who should be called Galdys in comparison to most of the kiddles in our class or at OC in general.

This post is all about getting to know me and my habbits and/or history regarding both reading and said research...hope you enjoy because I think you might learn something new.  And if you didn't...then I think we need to talk about how well we know each other!!

What interests me enough to spend my time reading?!?! Welp, if I had to sit down and really go down the list of topics that intrest me enough to write a paper about it would be hard for me to dial in on something specific.  The reason for that isn't becuase I don't have an interest in writting, research or anything like that - but it is more about the issue that my work in general is very large scale.  Sure at times I have to think on a granular level, but even at that point I always have to consider what my choices will do to the other aspects of my project and even tho it might not seem like it (or I don't want to think about it because it causes more issues) everything in implementation and design is connected in one way or another.

However, with that being said, I would like to look more at project management ideals and concepts and how it relates to and affects implementation efforts - specifically in the area of SCRUM.  How and what SCRUM is.  What are the downfalls to implementing a SCRUM enviornment?  What are the positives?  And so on...

Where do I begin looking things up, finding data that backs up what I want to speak about or anything that is remorely educational or credable enough to use as a source in  my papers...Well frankly, I have no idea!  But, my background and past/prior expierence in both academic, profressional (and personal) research that I have done in the past will definatly help me.

I have a ton of expierence reserarching topics...and while I enjoy it - there is a giant burdon that comes with it because of the fact that I have to know everything that I can find.  That wasn't a big deal years ago because there are only so many books that I could read in a period of time.  But we now live in the era of Google and umlimited opportunities to learn something.  So, I have to manage myself and my time and ensure that I am only spending time reading and using sources that are going to be meaningful and impactful to my end product.

I do enjoy the beginning part of writting a paper however and for those who know me even the slightest it won't suprise them when I say this.  I love sitting down and typing my topic in to Google and finding out all the basic information and really seeing what sparks not only my intrest but also my NEED to find out more.  What specifically about my topic makes the obsessive part of my brain take over and drive me to dive deeper and deeper?!  It is never the same as what it was before, and it doesn't matter if it is for school, work, or personal reasons there is always soemthing; and that something generally keeps me up until 4am cursing myself because the sun is now coming up, I haven't slept and the children will be awakening soon!!  But I love it!

I didn't learn  anythig new that would pertain to this class or my paper per say but I did learn that I am willing to drive 6 hours round trip just for a VooDoo Donut and I'm not sorry to admit it either! ...that's something I guess! :)

Happy week one...Till Next Time - Meg