COM 421: Technical Communication

I’ve been making different types of videos for a few years. I’ve done videos both with real people acting and pour animation, and now I found myself completely into the world of animation making. I think it is the best way to communication ideas visually for a few reasons.

1. It’s eye-catching.

As there are so many startup products and projects out there now. How to make yours stand out and get more exposure is very important. No matter how good your idea is, you need to draw people’s attention first in order for them to have interest in it. And animation usually looks more interesting as the style of the characters could be very different.

2. It’s simple

Unlike real people acting in real world, you can focus your animation in specific areas and just have the minimum elements of what you need. Nowadays everything is like fast food; no one would like to spend 10 minutes trying to figure out what you are trying to express in your video. As Mies van de Rohe has said, “Less Is More”; keeping the elements in a video to the bare minimum helps people to stay focus on the actual idea you try to communicate.

3. It’s flexible

With animation, you can draw anything you want, in any form and any environment. Acting needs collaboration; you need people with good acting skills, good filming skills, good editing skills and all that to complete a good video. You might get limited by weather, lighting, environment etc. It is frustrating when such things happens and you are just facing much more expected issues. Animation on the other hand, is highly flexible. Even simple characters drawn with a few lines can represent a real human being. All you need to control is yourself, who will be producing the drawings (or 3D models if you can create 3D characters on computer). With this flexibility animation provides, you can be more creative and simple focus on how you can develop the story better.

Of course, real people acting is more appropriate and attractive in many other fields. Just for the purpose of pitching or promoting your idea, I personally think animation is a much better choice.

Since we’ve been talking about ways to re-purpose different programs for our final projects, I thought it would be interesting to look into yet another way we can change the purpose of technology to fit our needs. An article posted on forbes.com (linked below) spoke about three different technologies that one would not normally think of to help the user learn a new language.

The first technology is subtitles. It’s not unheard of to watch foreign movies in the language one desires to learn, but one often does not think about the benefits of subtitles. When watching foreign movies the subtitles are usually set to one’s first language, but this dooms the movie watcher to simply read the subtitles rather than listen to what is being said. It is suggested, rather than putting the subtitles in one’s native language, to set them to the language one wishes to learn.

Secondly, listening to GPS directions is often overlooked. The GPS should be set to the language one is trying to learn rather than his or her native tongue. This will give the user read world practice with the language. First use the GPS on familiar routes to learn the words that may be unfamiliar. Then more advanced users can choose to use the GPS in a foreign language when he or she is driving an unfamiliar route.

Changing the language settings on one’s phone computer, phone, and/or tablet is the third and final suggested technology. This gives the user the opportunity to use the language to complete everyday tasks to further learn and understand the language. The user could even use his or her newly learned language at the ATM or other such devices.

Reference:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/05/08/three-surprising-ways-to-use-technology-to-learn-a-language/

After finishing up the group project and with the presentations happening today, it is a good time to look back over the project.  I have noticed that one of the biggest problems with a group project is not people who aren’t being helpful, it is the planning and organizing that goes into the project.  In this way, software like Google drive that allows many users to work, edit, and access documents quickly and easily ends up being a huge advantage.  The ability for collaboration in a group is heightened, as instead of giving one person the task, many people can work on it easily, even without meeting in person, which can often be a big issue in group projects.

There is a common Catch 22 present within many businesses. Drop Box is a commonly used tool, but often corporate content becomes mixed within an employee’s Drop Box that shouldn’t be there. Employees want an efficient application that syncs to all of their devices, easily allows them to share content, prevent corporate data from leaking to insecure locations, and to comply with relevant regulatory and audit concerns. Drop Box is a great tool, but doesn’t offer the security needed for corporate work. 

There are many common alternatives to using Drop Box. One option is a mobile-enabled SharePoint. It reduces the user’s likelihood to share their content on a personal cloud, while still providing them with easy access to their files. Another option is to Deploy an Enterprise Container / Persona. This means that a portion of a devise can be made enterprise only. This would increase the security of a mobile-enabled SharePoint. Drop Box and Google Drive could be blocked as well. By not allowing these apps to run the company can ensure that the employee’s work is not ending up on personal clouds.

These are all good solutions, but what’s the Catch 22? Many employees enjoy the simplicity and efficiency that drop box provides them. It is easy to use, can sync to all of their devices, and it makes sharing data exceedingly easy. Even with the options listed above implemented, employees will often find ways around them and continue using drop box anyway. This leaves a hole in the security of the company and still allows corporate information to be shared to personal clouds.

The Catch 22 is: how will security requirements be met when it’s impossible to turn off the service violating those requirements?

Reference:

http://www.appstechnews.com/blog-hub/2014/mar/11/mcm-and-the-dropbox-catch-22/

With technological development, when I first realized that this class can be used in the form of Web pages to do their resumes instead of the traditional form of the paper, I realized that if you do not learn these things I will soon be eliminated. To see so many new American kickstar site good idea, I have an idea that in the future these things back to China, so that more people feel the charm of technology

When trying to make a presentation many people rely on Powerpoint, but there are other tools out there that can be a helpful tool. One website that I found when looking at ways to make a better presentation was Cool Tools for School( http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/Presentation+Tools). This website that gives someone various tools that can be used to help better a presentation, and gives a description of what each tool does. These tools can cover images, videos, and audio presentations. The site also has a bunch of links to  sites where the presentation can be uploaded to the internet for public use, or group use. This is relevant to the class because it is a tool that I looked into using when trying to create a presentation to give in a classroom setting, that was not just a simple Powerpoint presentation.