TAO Journal - 5th Entry

Facebook - I observed five people use Facebook. Four of the five people, after signing into their account, immediately scrolled down their timeline. I asked how far they were scrolling down, and their replies explained that they were going back to the last thing they saw on the timeline when they checked previously. The one other person I observed clicked on her profile to see if her wall had sustained any changes. It hadn't. She then went to her timeline to look at her friends' activity. The trend in this study is the people checking their timeline and the anomaly the individual who went straight to her profile. I think this trend occurs because when people log into Facebook, the time feed is effectively the home page. Also, people get emails if something is posted to their wall or profile so the interest in others is ostensibly the reason for logging in without receiving an email. The anomaly could have occurred because the person does not regularly check email or prefers to find out changes to her wall/profile upon visiting the site. A random observation during this test was that 2 of the users looked at their timeline with the "Most Popular" filter, and the other three used the "Most Recent" filter.

Pictures - I went around taking pictures of groups of people to see how people took pictures with one another. Out of the ten I took, eight put their arms around each other. The other two groups (anomaly) did not. I began typing "the reason for the trend occurring is obvious" but I stopped and realized it's not all that obvious. Why do people embrace each other in pictures? I suppose it suggests friendship, but it's almost second nature that people embrace for pictures. I do not know why but it is truly a common phenomenon. The anomaly makes more sense - stand in the picture in your own capacity. The trend is almost like the two being photographed are going through space on a trip together. My observation from this test was that everyone smiled in the photos, even those that didn't embrace.

Presentation - In my classes this week I tried to analyze how people were presented their marker comp advertisements. I probably watched about 25 different presentations. Roughly 20 of those were presented by pinning up all the advertisements and then briskly going through each of the ads with back turned toward the rest of the class. The other five or so did not (anomaly). The other five differed from the trend in that they either pinned up each ad one at a time or they faced the class as they presented each one. I think the trend of lacking presentation skills is probably because we are first quarter students and have not been properly instructed how to present our work. The anomalies may have occurred because those people had been trained in other places to present in such a way. The observation I took from this experience was that most people seem in a hurry to get through their presentation and speak at a clipped rate.

Examples of Diminishing Good Will

Hiding info that I want - https://secure.palmcoastd.com/pcd/eServ?iServ=MDQzMDE1Mzg3MiZpVHlwZT1FTlRFUg==

This is a link to the Garden and Gun subscription services site. However it does not list a number I can call to talk to someone.


Punishing me for not doing things their way -  https://secure.opentable.com/details_pci.aspx?iid=1&shpu=1&hpu=1759678377&rid=1301&d=8/31/2011%205:30:00%20PM&p=2&pt=100&i=0&ss=1&sd=8/31/2011%208:00:00%20PM&ofid=72700&ofv=1&Q=IID&mode=pcicyb

OpenTable - I wanted to make a reservation and just enter my name, but the site wants me to make a whole profile.


Asking me for info they don't really need - https://secure.opentable.com/details_pci.aspx?iid=1&shpu=1&hpu=1759678377&rid=1301&d=8/31/2011%205:30:00%20PM&p=2&pt=100&i=0&ss=1&sd=8/31/2011%208:00:00%20PM&ofid=72700&ofv=1&Q=IID&mode=pcicyb

OpenTable - Not only do they want me to start a new profile, but they want me to enter my credit card information for a reservation, which doesn't make sense or seem right.


Faux Sincerity - http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/CustomerGuarantee.html

Comcast has the worst customer service I have ever encountered. Getting them to credit your account when they miss an appointment is like pulling teeth, and is insufficient for your time anyway.

Putting sizzle in my way- http://espn.go.com/

The leading sports site has a lot of flashy banners that expand upon coming to the site which makes it more difficult to find what I'm looking for.

Experience seems amateurish - http://www.drudgereport.com/

I know this is a popular news blog, but the site seems so poorly designed and amateurish that I don't see how it is taken seriously.

Analyzing Autocorrect

The full spreadsheet can be seen here.

TAO Journal - 4th Entry

This week I took advantage of the assignment and my required presence at Publix. I decided to check out how people were parking at Publix. I watched about 15 people park and noticed that 13 of the 15 cars I observed went down the center-most parking row to the Publix entrance. I believe they did this in hopes of finding a spot from which it would be easy to get to the store. The parking lot was full though, and many of the cars that I saw going down the center row I saw again many of them I saw again circling around still looking for a spot on other rows. The anomaly in this trend were the two cars that initially tried to find a spot on adjacent rows. These cars were not cycling through and had not been down the center row, I made sure to watch them from their entry to the center from the road. I believe these anomalies occurred because of the drivers' respective perception that the traffic flow was heavy down the center row and that they might have a better shot on less populated rows. An observation from this trend was that a few cars went down the center row and then circled around and went right back down it, probably hoping someone had left in the time between their circling.

My next TAO was a bit of a sad one. I went to the funeral of friend of mine last weekend. It was at a Catholic church and communion was offered. I did not partake, but I observed how people received their communion. I watched at least 100 people take their communion. Non-Catholics are not offered the communion but could receive blessings. However, there was some confusion. The trend was people going up and receiving their communion as the priest gave it to them. Most people, Catholic or not knew how to interact with priest. The anomaly in this case were those who did not know what to do and awkwardly received blessing from an empathetic priest. It is simple enough to see why this anomaly occurred - those not familiar with the Catholic tradition wouldn't likely be familiar with the rite or how they might receive the non-believer blessing. Still though, it was surprising that the trend was not observed by those that did not know what to do. An observation I made was one individual, evidently a non-Catholic, tried to actually reach into the priest's cup to snatch himself up his own communion. The priest refused the man, and the man walked away awkwardly.

My final TAO came from the ballpark again. Last weekend the Braves were doing a lot of autograph signings around the ballpark to commemorate the '91 "Worst to First" team. Long lines formed at the 4 or 5 different stations were located, each with different players. I was waiting for a friend and too impatient to wait in the long lines, so I sat at a nearby table to watch how the line behaved. The trend I observed was people getting on their cell phones to combat the boredom of the line. Not everyone was on their phones, but a lot of them were. I don't know if they were texting or playing games or what but the diversion of their phones was really all the people in line had aside from talking to one another. I think the anomaly in this situation would be those that had a phone but chose not to entertain themselves with it. I don't know why they might have made this choice, but surely several people were behaving this way. Perhaps it was out of courtesy to someone they were with. I do not know for sure, but it is curious to think about why someone wouldn't divert themselves if they could. Hell, maybe they weren't bored. In any event, my observation is that it would be great if lines had an app. What I mean is - an app that could display content to those in the line particular to the line itself. Sort of like a channel or an in-flight monitor in which you could see where you are in the line or approximately how long til you are next, and so on.

Taxonomy

Synonyms

Recall vs. Precision - Ego Surfing

I searched my name, "Scott Chalkley" and looked at the first 20 results. Only three of those pages had anything to do with me personally. Other results had to do with people with the same name. In the first five results, none were relevant to me. As asked of me in class, the number of results that were relevant to me (3) divided by the number of entries relevant to me in the first five results (0) = 0.

I don't think these results would help a firm to hire me.