itunesU Lectures

I chose to do University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith's School of Business because I am a big fan of the Maryland lacrosse team and I know it is a highly regarded school to begin with.

I chose to watch a couple lectures that relate to the content we have been talking about throughout this course. The first lecture I watched was called "Can Social Networking Sites Help Your Business?"

I chose to watch this because it related to the social networking emphasis we have had throughout the night school and it relates to the business side of it, which I will be studying in University.

A couple things I learned from watching this lecture is the professional side of social networking. People that are using their "Personal Resume on the Web" lack pictures but it is almost used as a business card. I found it interesting that the people most invested in this are the bigger companies. Professor Schlake refers to them as "head hunters" or financial advisors.

It was surprising to me that small networks aren't as big into social networking yet. I would have thought they were because small businesses would be making the effort to get the local target market to invest or buy their product. But Professor Schlake says that it is the bigger companies that are much more active in social networking because it takes time and effort to have a good social networking site, and is mostly driven by an individual rather than a company.

I learned that social networking for businesses is definitely going to be the future for personal networking, but this only works if you can create a level of trust that goes beyond an email. 

The second video I watched was titled "Making Your Innovative Idea A Reality".

They talk about innovation in a business sense, and the steps needed to take an innovative idea and the process they believe can be used to make this idea successful.

The Process is:

New Idea
Search and Experimentation
Realization and Diffusion

The video is self explanatory on what innovation is and how it can be successfully accomplished.

The ideas I have posted above are things that I would like to learn in post secondary education. I plan on using my knowledge of PLN and social networking's uses with business to university and being able to incorporate them in my ideas.