A poverty simulation exercise was held in Nashville to give volunteer participants a glimpse of a month in poverty. Russ Anthony 411 was there in the middle of the action to record it all. For some, it will be a reminder and for others it will be a new prospective. Click here to watch Poverty Simulation (Nashville) presented by Anthony-Denmark Communications.
I believe that people should have a bigger role in deciding how they are affected by technology including how their personal information is used.
From the age of nine or ten I remember having an interest in electronic devices and media. My older sister would call me ‘The Mad Scientist” as I was taking apart a radio or record player to see how it worked. I am fortunate now that I am able to own the electronic equipment devices as an adult that grew out of my interest as a child. As I have matured, I have seen how technology has hurt and helped people. I want to do more to help. I started Anthony-Denmark Communications and RussAnthony411 in order to carryout beliefs that bring hope for a better tomorrow. Social work technology expresses these core beliefs. These are only ten technology beliefs. Maybe you share some of these or can add your own.
Belief One: Everyone should access to important information in order make informed decisions about how he/she is affected by technology.
Belief Two: People have a right to decide how much personal information to disclose to business or institutions. People should be made aware of how the information is used in easy to read and concise language.
Belief Three: Everyone should take steps to protect his/her own personal information and not to rely solely on the privacy policies created by outside organizations.
Belief Four: Increase access to technology should be made available to those with physical/mental limitations.
Belief Five: Affordable technology should be reachable to the poor and people in remote areas.
Belief Six: Technology can help to preserve the wisdom of older generations as well as maintain connections with distant family members.
Belief Seven: Technology can help people to communicate with each other when personal interactions are impractical, however, technology does not replace human contact.
Belief Eight: Using technology requires a responsibility, to use it appropriately, be considerate of others and to dispose it wisely.
Belief Nine: Technology is to make our lives better. Periodic assessments should be made of personal and organizational uses of technology and the effects.
Belief Ten: Technology should be shared. Organizations and individuals should seek to share equipment and expertise to those in need. This will empower those who receive to reach out to assist others in need.
Technology can do so much to help people. It touches so many parts of our lives that we cannot ignore it. Therefore, let’s do what we can to share the benefits of technology and information with everyone. What can you do?
-Russ
With the summer weather coming on, a lot of folks are taking to the water. This is Anthony-Denmark Communications’ first public service announcement video warning people of the dangers of using technology in the water. As always please read the instruction manual. Hey, its dangerous out there people.
Many social workers are adept in using technology to improve the lives of their clients and agencies. If you are a social worker that enjoys using technology, this is encouragement to consider becoming a social work technologist. While it may not be an official position, it is a needed position in many organizations. Here are five realistic things you can do to become a social work technologist in your workplace:
1) Talk to coworkers and colleagues about your tech skills and share information. Share experiences about using technology from your department or agency with others. Be a source of support. Gain support and learn from others.
2) Let your boss/supervisor know that you have an interest in serving clients through the use of technology. Give examples or suggestions to improve the use of the computer network or changes to the client data base. Be realistic and practical for a better chance of a positive outcome.
3) Focus your intent to use technology around improving the lives of customers and/or improving the success of the organization. Most social agencies are over burdened. Look for ways that can have benefits towards clients or save the organization time/money.
4) Get noticed. Put your technology skills on display. Not in a selfish way, but in a manner that gets the higher-ups in your agency to expand their view of what social workers can do. Especially, if you work in an environment where the executives graduated from school before the Internet or personal computers.
5) Do your job. While this may seem obvious, you will be in a better position to state your case for becoming involved in your agency’s technology efforts if you are maintaining your caseload or primary work responsibilities. Demonstrating transferable skills such as organization and attention to detail will serve you well.
Doing these five things will put you on the road to becoming a social work technologist. From there, your mission will be to help others to take the same steps. I look forward to hearing about the technology efforts other social workers have made and are making. This site bears the phrase, “The Home of Social Work Technology”. I know that others are doing similar work from what little I have encountered. I do not know how large of a number there is of other technology-skilled social workers. However that number will surely increase as the younger social workers enter the workforce. By strengthening social work technology today, we can do our part to see that social work is being performed by social workers in the future.
Now is the time for technology-minded social workers to mobilize and unite. A call is being made for Social Work Technologists to improve the lives of clients by advancing our technical skills. For those looking for extra credentials, there is no exam or certification. However, you will be armed with skills that are greatly needed in the workplace for many social workers. Social workers everywhere need to stand on their keyboards and shout it out on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc. that we can be trusted to use technology to serve our clients. For too long we have stood by and watched while computer and information technology professionals have directed the course of direct services to customers. (This is not written to antagonize those professionals but to work toward a better partnership for the welfare of the recipients of social and human services).
Social workers know how to use technology to improve the lives of people and society. Yet, the very nature of a social worker’s job can be severely altered by a computer analyst without a clear concept of the work being done. This is not the fault of the tech department but an indication that the powers that be see social workers as lacking these needed technology skills. If we are not careful, every step from intake to case closure will be automated without input from the staff who know the clients.
This is not a selfish plea about saving social work jobs but a plea nonetheless to motivate and encourage social workers everywhere to take a stand and realize that many of our agencies can better if social workers utilized technology in the performance of job duties. Our clients will be that much better off.
Please click here to watch vote my new Anthony – Denmark end logo 2 on You Tube. Thank you.
This is additional footage from Lowell Perry, Jr.’s closing presentation at the TCSW Conference in Franklin, Tennessee on April 6, 2011. Mr. Perry speaks about the advantages and disadvantages of life with cell phones and mobiles devices. He describes us as being tethered to technology. He also offers some insight on the importance of valuing one-on-one communication and to remember that there are times, “to put the phone down and acknowledge the person in front of us”. Click here for the video or go to the RussAnthony411 You Tube channel at www.y0utube.com/user/russanthony411 .
( The use of The Bible passages in this post is to show how wisdom through out the ages has applicability to technology life in 2011. These verses are repeated with respect and reverence).
If you are surfing the Internet for downloads, making a copy of a flash drive file or using wireless in your home or business read this verse from the New Testament and apply it to your use of technology.
Matthew 25: 1-13
1 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour”. (NIV)
Always Be on Guard
Regardless of what your web browser claims, there is no real “safe search” setting. If you want to truly be free of identity theft hackers – pull the plug on the Internet. Even then you may have previously, and unknowing, downloaded a virus or trojan that is hiding in your computer just waiting for the opportunity to strike. For every identity theft program or firewall setting there is a crook somewhere whose sole purpose is to find a weakness in that program or setting. Life lesson: the security companies and the hackers have a shady backroom, cigar-filled, you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours, underhanded agreement. They make work for each other. Some times it is obvious. You know, when the warning comes on your screen, ” You have a virus!! Click here for our virus protection program”. They should know, they created the virus too. In the 40’s we called this the Mafia and extortion. Even the honest security companies know that if they cured “computer cancer” today they would be out of a job tomorrow. Viruses and worms are good for business.
“But while they were on their way to buy the oil…”
I do not mean to paint the picture that all is lost. There is something that you can do. If you are going to be on the Internet, the time to get a virus protection program is before, not after, a virus is detected. Repeat, the time to get a virus protection program is before, not after, a virus is detected. Sure the cards are stacked against the uninformed Internet user – just don’t be uninformed.
Here are some things you can do:
Keep watch because you do not know…. That’s always been good advice.
By the way, admitting that something is hard to do is not a substitute for trying to do it.
Russ
After reading my post of 4/19/2011 “Ten Year Olds Rule The World”, a friend recounted the story of a two- year old relative who fought against some old technology. Apparently, the young tech diva’s grandmother was taking some pictures of her on a disposal camera. Well the two year old posed and cooperated after being the star of several of her mother’s photos and wanted her grandmother to know that same joy of granddaughter to enjoy.
Immediately after a few poses the two year old leaned over to get a glance at the back of the disposal camera to see how she looked. She was shocked and astonished at not seeing a display screen – wondering what kind of game her grandmother was playing. She crossed her arms in defiance. Realizing that her grandmother was using a “play” camera, she protested and refused more poses. The grandmother’s pleas of, “Really, sweetie, this is a real camera” and “I have to take these to the drug store and get them developed” were only the ramblings of someone obviously out of touch with reality.
The two year old diva’s world is one where here contemporaries know how to Google and look up You Tube videos. It scary what the world will become in the year 2100 when she will only be 91.
Thanks for the story “G”.
Do you have story idea or comment for Russ Anthony 411? If so, please leave one at the end of this article or email me at russ@russanthony411.com. It can take a few hours for your comments to post, so please check back later after you send it.
By the way, when you realize that all you know is all you know, then you will really begin to learn.
Russ
Recently my niece showed me how to change my iPhone pass code from using four digits to the more secure alphanumeric mode. Two weeks ago, or so it seemed, I was patiently being the good uncle by explaining to her this fancy new gadget (original iPhone, circa 2007) I bought. “Look here, see the pretty lights?” I told her trying not to overwhelm her with technical jargon and concepts. So imagine my wounded pride a few days ago when she showed some frustration that I couldn’t follow her instructions with the pass code change. “No Uncle Russell! You go to settings…oh here, let me do it!” She used to be so cute. What happened? Was I starting to loose my touch? Here’s what happened: My niece learns and communicates with the world with a perspective starting in the early nineties. In her world everyone gathers information and processes it quickly. She does not know about calling the reference librarian to help with her home work or waiting for the paper to be delivered to get the news – of yesterday.
In the 1980’s I worked as a retail manager for a well-known electronics retailer. As sales people we wowed customers by explaining how they could record one channel on their video cassette recorder while watching another channel on their television. It was like magic and we felt like kings. I felt like Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now”. Remember, “A snail slithers on a razor’s edge”. If you are fifty, like me, or older it is too easy to get comfortable with the technology that we know.
At home my niece has access to 300 channels on TV not three like we did; (well four if you include the public station). She hears about something interesting and can go to the Internet and interact with that information right away. No reading the encyclopedia with its out of date maps and pictures of deposed world leaders. In her world information changes constantly and she adapts to it as needed. Her way of thinking is in the present and future. The baby boom generation had it good for a while but “kids today” will one day see the rate of technological progress from the 1960’s to the 1990’s in months not decades. They will not have the time nor desire to keep doing things the old way, just because it is the old way.
The jobs that have been lost due to technological improvements in manufacturing probably won’t be coming back. The days of working 40 years for a company from high school to retirement, with employer-provided training along the way, have gone with the wind. The key to being successful in business and in a career is not counting how long you have been coming to work but the value you possess. Information and education will be the keys to success. Previous jobs that called strictly for manual labor will be manual labor plus. Digging a ditch plus designing the ditch. Loading trucks plus identifying logistics. Picking up trash plus evaluating costs of trash removal.
So my niece represents the change that is coming and is already here. There is always something new to learn and learning comes natural to her generation. It is not the desire to learn that is so different, it’s the ease as which information can be gathered. My hope is that her generation will not loose the power of discernment and wisdom that can come only with the words, “back in my day we didn’t have these new fangled…” Until then I am going to ask her to show me how I can get Internet service on my laptop by using the signal from my cell phone. If I’m lucky she will sigh with frustration and say, “Oh Uncle Russell, let me do it!”
By the way, it should make you mad or sad, if you let someone make you mad or sad.
Russ