Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO would certainly help the the CMMA because when Google searching "CMMA" the results are: Communications Media Management Association, Central Minnesota Manufactures Association, and so on with no sign of our CMMA. In order to find it one has to search "Central Michigan Manufacturers Association".
Ways Google determines the ranking of sites is through Crawling, Indexing, and Serving results.

• Crawling is the process in which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages. As Googlebot crawls through each site it detects links and adds them to the list of pages to crawl.
• Indexing is the compiling of all the pages Googlebot crawled into a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page. Also processes key content tags and and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes.
• Serving Results searching the index and provides a result determined to be most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 things, one is PageRank. PageRank is the measure of importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages.Each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your PageRank.

One problem that could be occurring for the CMMA is that whenever referencing themselves on the site they use "Central Michigan Manufacturers Association" and never "CMMA". Which in this case GoogleBot would never pick up on "CMMA" and Google search would never come up the Central Michigan Manufacturers Association for a search of CMMA.
 
  

Principles of The Social Organization

The CMMA has work to do to meet the principles of mass collaboration. They need to get participation from the community to provide content and learn what the community wants to know. The CMMA lacks transparency, unless you are a member the site provides very little information. A way to improve this would be to create a facebook page or something similar where public information could be shared and discussed. The main concern right now would be creating a public page that anyone can see and contribute to.

Social Media Saturated Environment

How can education in your field be adapted to fit the new social media saturated environment?
My field of study is Information Technology. My education on the subject can be adapted to fit the new social media environment by utilizing social media as a way to help users trouble shoot problems they may be encountering on their computers, smart phones, tablets, etc.
An I.T. professional could answer basic questions that social media users submitted via some social media site that links to another site.
This idea is a little impractical because the I.T. personnel would be answering questions for free, but possibly if the device needed further servicing then the company could provide the service.
Best Buy Geek Squad is a good example.

Mobile Devices in the Work Place

The use of mobile devices are used by members of the CMMA as seen when my group met with them last Tuesday. Right now the function as a convenient way to read and compose emails. While working on the floor cell phones are prohibited because they are a distraction and therefore a safety hazard. While not on the floor mobile devices like the iPhone and Android can be used to communicate with one and other via text or email. Once the CMMA adopts social media lets use facebook as an example, mobile devices could be used to update their page with pictures and news, read and answer comments, or even share links. The use of mobile devices for the CMMA's cause would only be needed by a select few of board members in charge of running the site and since phones aren't allowed on the floor everything listed above could be done as easy or easier from a desk top or laptop.      

A Promising Future?

Who Owns the Future, Preface and chapter 1. The thought of humans creating technology that is slowly making ourselves inadequate is a scary thought, even though it's been happening for years. For example, the auto industry, replacing factory workers with machines and leaving thousands without jobs. 

"We're setting up a situation where better technology in the long term just means more unemployment". Technology is growing at an exponential rate; this is obvious if you look at the technological advances from the past 10 years compared to the 10 years before that. 

The chapter discusses free information vs paid information, like all of you I would love for all information to be free as google already makes it seem, but if paying for certain information would hold a strong middle class and not leave us in a hyper-unemployment state then I would strongly support that. Who Owns the Future should open our eyes to what could be happening as we grow up, graduate and compete for jobs. But will you be competing against a human or a machine?

CMMA

The business that I have picked is the Central Michigan Manufacturers Association or the CMMA. This organization is a group of manufacturing companies from the central Michigan area. They don't have much experience in the field of social media and are trying to reach out to a younger crowd to possibly draw them into the profession. I am a part of the group working with the CMMA to help guide them in the path they are seeking. Challenges that they are facing is which direction to go with social media in order to make themselves more known and extinguish the thought that manufacturers are a bunch of wielders who work in a dirty shop doing heavy labor. They already have a website but if you're not a member it doesn't have much to contribute. By branching themselves into social media they can get whatever information they want known available and easily communicate with individuals who are interested.

Chapters 3 & 4 The Social Organization, Meshy

The CMMA doesn't really follow the the principals outlined in chapters 3 and 4 of The Social Organization. However they do understand what they'd like to achieve which is the first step to following the principals. Right now the CMMA website is primary a tool to be used for the members, their goal is to create a way to communicate and inform non-members. Using the "Six F" model of attitudes towards social media I would place the CMMA as "formulating" because they wish to be more organized and strategic in its use. I would say that the Central Michigan Manufacturers Association is not a "meshy" business. They aren't very involved with social media and all business done by the companies in the CMMA, I imagine is in the more formal way of filling out an invoice.

CMMA and Mass Collaboartion

The six principles of mass collaboration are: participation, collective, transparency, independence, persistence, and emergence. The Central Michigan Manufactures Association makes use of mass collaboration but is really only useful to the members of the CMMA who can sign into the members portion of the website. The use of the six principals is weak to say the least. There is no transparency and unless you were a member nothing is available to see. It is collective in the sense that the website is a place were the members can communicate with each other and schedule board meetings, etc. For the Central Michigan Manufactures Association to truly make use of mass collaboration would be to make a facebook, blog, or some other space where people can go to learn, read, and comment about the CMMA.