Goal Setting

We have started a new unit in Business lll which is Organise Personal Work Priorities.  Our two new assignments which we’ll be covering first are, creating a 3-5 year plan and setting up a calendar in Google calendars.

When I first saw that we had to create a 3-5 year plan on where we would like to see ourselves in that time, my head went blank. I had no idea where or what I see myself doing in that timeframe, but as I sat down and thought about where I really wanted to be in 1, 3 or even 5 years, I got quite excited about this assignment.  We had to think of goals that wouldn’t be too hard to achieve, like finishing this course, traveling or getting a job at a specific place. 

These goals had to be a mixture of long term and short term goals that could actually be achieved in that given time frame and when we thought of something, we had to think about what barriers we may need to overcome and how to achieve these goals.

 

We then looked at different ways you could present a calendar and also had a quick look at Google Calendars.  I’d never seen the point of calendars before now because I usually remember everything, but after I made one Google Calenders, I realised how great they were. 

 You can write down your schedule to the hour and you can colour coordinate each different section. For example, green could be for birthdays, red could be for personal things like a family gathering you have to attend this coming weekend, or yellow for your work timetable.

Protecting Yourself Online

This is the last week of Communicating Electronically and we were given our final assignment. This unit has taught me a lot and I feel I’ll be a lot more email savvy and know more about all the dangers that are found online that I’ve talked about in previous blogs. 

This week for our final report, we had to pick a topic and write about it.  I chose to write about protecting your online identity and I was very surprised by what I found online.

A lot of people these days have some sort of electronic device or social media account and it’s almost impossible to find someone who doesn’t, especially in the younger generations. But the thing is, most of these people probably don’t really know how to protect themselves from online hackers.

Once I started looking into this subject, I was surprised by how many different ways your information on sites could be used by hackers to get into your accounts. They could use anything from your address, phone number, email address or even your friend connections could come into play.

 There are a lot of ways you can protect yourself from cyber hackers, and I’m going to go through just a few.

1.       Check your privacy settings on social media sites

When you have a social media account, you should always make sure your privacy setting are set to ‘friends only.’ This way, only the people you’ve added and trust, can see anything your posts.  If you don’t have it set to ‘friends only,’ anyone can go into your profile look at what you’ve got on there.  On Facebook, there is a timeline of every post or ‘check in’ you’ve made, and stalkers and thieves could learn your patterns just by looking at them, so make sure you check your privacy settings.

2.       Keep personal information off social media sites

Having addresses, date of birth, your email address, or even your phone number on these sites can present ways for someone to gain more knowledge of you. Make sure that if you have an ‘About Me’ section, you don’t put down too much information about yourself and don’t add any ‘friends’ you don’t know outside of the networking sites.

3.       Receiving emails you aren’t too sure about

Spam emails are being sent more frequently and are becoming more sophisticated with every day that passes.  If there is ever an email sent to you which you aren’t sure about, make sure you delete it and report it to your email administration immediately.  Make sure you never respond to emails which ask for your account details, even if it looks like it’s been sent by your bank.  Banks never ask you for any of your account information online or by phone, but if you are in doubt, always call your bank first.

4.       Have you got a secure password?

Protecting your password is extremely important as you should already know. Knowing this, you should protect them and keep them safe by not telling anyone what they are and making sure they’re strong passwords.  Don’t use your birth date or an easy number sequence such as 12345 because if they’re easy to remember, they’ll probably be easy to crack.  Also making sure you have a separate password for each different online account you may have will ensure that even if one account is hacked, your other accounts will be safe.

5.       Instead of using your credit card, use PayPal

When you are using your credit card online, you are risking a great deal giving out the number, especially if the site you’re on isn’t secure. When you are using a PayPal card, you are protecting your credit card number and the fewer people who know what your credit card number is, the better off you are.

We also had a look at setting up filters in Gmail and I must say, I did have a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to actually set one up and had to get a little help, but I’ve found that they’re actually quite great! You can get the filter to pick up certain words in an email and filter into a file just for those, or you can filter any messages from certain people into a file of their own also.

The ups and downs of using social networking sites

This week we looked at how businesses promote products and sales using social media sites and the dangers associated with using any social networking sites.

Social media for businesses

A lot of businesses are turning to social media sites to promote their products to potential buyers. They see it as a way to broaden their clientele and to get the company name out there more than it already is.  It lets their buyers discuss and review their products online with others and improve with any feedback given.  They can also let you know if they’re having a sale or if they’ve brought in new products or new stock.

Part of our assignment this week, was to look at how Qantas used social media sites to promote their business.  Qantas have accounts in Facebook, twitter, instagram and even Youtube.  When I had a look at these accounts, I noticed they told you a lot about what was going on inside their company as well as promoting flight sales to destinations all around the world.   They always use those social media accounts to respond to any speculations or rumours that might be circling around in the air, and post things about their achievements like being the post punctual major domestic airline in 2013.

It shows in the way they respond to people messages that they care about their passages.  They also use their Youtube account to take you behind the scenes of Qantas and show you how they load the luggage on board and show you inside the aircraft which I found extremely interesting.

 

 

The dangers of social networking

We watched a short video clip called ‘Cyber bullying – solutions for parents.’ It was a clip based on a teenage boy who is filming himself talking about being bullied at school and cyber bullied by people who were his friends before the bullying.  It was very emotional and you aren’t sure which way it’s going to go when it gets closer to the end.  When his mother watches the video, she talks to the school about what is happening. It is a nice ending to what could have easily been a not so great one.

The best way to describe cyber bullying for those who don’t know, is when you cause harm to someone using mobile phones, email or social media sites by posting hurtful messages, harassing, threatening or embarrassing another person.  The difference between bullying and cyber bullying is that usually when school ends for the day, the bullying stops, but for kids who are being cyber bullied, there is no escape.

Studies have shown that 90% of teenagers have seen bullying occur on social media sites, and done nothing about it.  I think this is terrible and makes me wonder why they wouldn’t intervene.   Is it because they’re scared that they bully will turn on then and begin to cyber bully them?  Or is it because they don’t care?  All these questions are going around and around inside my head trying to work out the answer.

 A few other dangers associated with social networking sites are;

Ø  Sexting – Remember, internet is forever and if you sent inappropriate photos, they will always be there.

Ø  People who put too much information on their accounts. People use this information to steal your identity or commit a crime such as stalking or thievery.

Ø  People posing as someone they aren’t. This could turn out to be a 40 year old when really, you think they’re 17.  But you would never know.

Ø  It is becoming increasing common for potential employers to check your Facebook or twitter account and may base their final decision on what they see there.   Do not post anything online that you wouldn’t want your employer to see.

Ø  Online dating – could turn out to be a hoax.

Emailing, Spam and Wattpad

This week in Business Certificate lll, we talked about emails at work, spam and social networking sites.   We watched a power point presentation on sending and receiving emails at work. We had to think about things such as why most staff have log in procedures at work, how you could deal with urgent; confidential; personal or suspicious emails received at work, what you must consider before sending an email at work or if your company can read your emails on your personal account.

I thought the answer to those questions were pretty straight forward, but as we talked about them, I realised I was wrong. For example, I always thought companies had log ins so only people from that company could access files in the computer system, and while that is part of the reason, it goes a lot deeper than that.  Yes, it’s for security, but it’s also so that person can save their preferences or favourite programs on the desktop, and another reason is so the company can track what you’re doing if need be.

We also talked about how you would deal with different types of emails.  I have listed a couple below and how to deal with them.

 Urgent emails

Urgent emails are usually ones that need to be read straight away. They may have a red box or flag next to it to show it’s a high priority email.  If you need to send an urgent email to someone, it’s always best to follow up with a phone call letting that person know you’ve sent them an email, just in case they are not at their computer or they are in a meeting.

 Suspicious emails

A few points to consider if you think an email may be suspicious are;

Ø  Do you know the person sending the email?

Ø  Is it a strange email address asking for personal information?

Ø  Is it listed to a unclosed recipient?

Ø  May be sent to junk folder.

Ø  Suspicious file type.

Ø  Does the email make sense?  Is there broken English?

 

Spam

We then went on to look at what spam was and how to manage it.  Did you know spam has it’s own Act called Spam Act 2003?  There are three main rules when it comes to spam, which are; consent, identity and unsubscribe.

Consent

All commercial messages sent electronically must have your consent before sending any.  There are two types of consent and these are express consent and inferred consent.

Express consent is when you have intentionally opted to receive messages from a certain company or sender. 

Inferred consent is when you have an existing relationship with the sender and because of this, they can send you electronic messages.  For example, you may have subscribed to a magazine, and because of this, they think it’s alright to send to massages.

 Identity

All commercial messages sent to you electronically MUST have identification which is clear and accurate which you can see.  This identification must include how you can contact the sender.

Unsubscribe.

All electronic messages must have a link where someone can go to unsubscribe, which means they must not send you electronic messages any longer.

Remember, if you receive a spam email which looks suspicious, delete it and report it to your email provider immediately.  Spam can sometimes become a nuisance if you are receiving it in your inbox every day. You can manage it easily by going into settings in your email account and activating the spam or junk preference, or you can purchase a spam filter.

 

Social Networking

Social networking has become a major part in many people’s lives these days, with a lot of people depending on the internet for different reasons, whether it’s for promoting business sales or products, to using it to keep in touch with friends and family.  Gone are the days when we used to send letters via post to get in touch with others or called them by telephone. Although I must admit, I do still send the odd letter to friends and even family overseas.

I chose to do my research on a site called Wattpad which is a social networking site centred around books.  It’s become quite popular since 2007 when it started, with millions of people now using it. When I first looked at this site, I thought I had gone to heaven because I’m always looking for a new book to read, and here were millions of them on this one site. To sum up Wattpad, it’s basically a huge library online full of free books, articles and poems.  Users can read and write stories, give feedback, share stories and even follow their favourite authors.

There have been over 500 successful Wattpad authors who have had their book published because their story had been read millions of times.  Wattpad is a great stepping stone for young and upcoming authors who want to become recognised.

If you’re a book lover, I recommend you take a look.  I have provided a link to the site below.

http://www.wattpad.com/

Email

Last week, I signed up to Gmail as part of the unit 'Communicating Electronically in Class.' before then, I had never had an account on Gmail so it's all very new to me at this point in time.  We created a checklist last week which has a list of things we have to complete on the email account this term.  A few things on that checklist were,

• Add a new contact.
• Make a folder for specific topics.
• Add your class mates and lecturer as a new contact.

In the past, I have only had an email account on hotmail which I check regularly. I have become quite familiar with the way in which it's set up, so i'm sure this one will definitely take time to get used to. Also remembering to check this account if needed outside of TAFE will be a challenge.

As a class, we also watched an email etiquette DVD and we learnt all about things like Cc and Bcc, how writing things in a post on a social networking site may effect your work and that writing in the subject line is very important.  A few email ettiquette tips have been added below

• Use a font that's easy tto read.
• Use proper grammer.
• Write a brief summary in the subject line explaining what is in the email.
• If you are attaching a file, make a note of it.
• Do not use capital letters as it's considered shouting.
• Consider what your email sounds like to the person reading it (professional, angry).