Politics: Part Two

I'm back from my meeting, and want to clarify that I am not implying anything about Sarah Palin's home life, that I am just pointing out the potential for her familial lifestyle to suffer while being VP, which ultimately weakens her party's assertion that they identify with the family core.

Continuing my $0.18 worth... I do think that O'Bama lacks a lot of experience to be the next president of the United States. However, as I have graduated from college and entered the "real world" I have discovered that no matter how well qualified a person is for a new position, it requires a certain degree of adaptability for them to become effective in a new role. There is a learning curve to everything, so to speak, and nothing can prepare a candidate for all of the pressures and responsibilities that the presidency brings except for actually being president. Even someone as experienced as John McCain will require a little time to make the proper adjustments.

I dare say that politics corrupts the authenticity that I emphasized in my previous message, and that having a "newer" president might actually be a good thing, because they are more likely, from a psychological point of view, to relate to the average American. (P.S. I don't believe in the concept of an "average American" because we're so diverse but you see my point)

My personal over-generalization of the parties:

When you make a Democrat angry, they become douche bags. Irrational douche bags. They yell at, write-off, and interrupt anyone that even slightly contradicts their personally-held doctrine, sometimes even resorting to the argument of "you're wrong." I find it hard to WANT to agree with people that don't maintain a standard of demeanor, especially on national television.

When you make a Republican angry, they usually become illogical and disoriented. They will often make verbal attacks against the other side that have no relevance whatsoever to the issues at hand, or they will become completely incoherent and not make any sense at all. And a vote of "huh?" is not a strong vote to have.

Am I over-generalizing? You betcha! But I hate politics in general, so I'm pretty much the most unbiased non-conformist you'll ever meet (hooray for the labels being placed on me at this very moment!). But by no means would I place my personal stereotypes on anyone just because of their political affiliation. Although they are fun to play with.

:-)

Politics: Part One

Disclaimer: I am neither Republican nor Democrat, and I hate illogical, close-minded politics. So here is my $0.18 worth... 

I think McCain is too old... not because of the naive argument that "he might die" but because he doesn't grasp the potential of modern technology in small things like... and this is just off the top of my head... alternative energy sources. "Drill, baby, drill" is the policy that reflects the generation-gap between he and I. Drilling is not a long-term solution and so instead of going to war with the Arabs over a commodity, we should work towards something more advanced. Gasoline is old technology.

Palin is really hot, and it is awkward to see her and McCain together on television. I mean REALLY AWKWARD. I think most of the media's attacks on her are completely UNjustified. However, I do think it's a terrible idea for the Republican Party to keep her (and other PR spokespeople) away from interviews. It's sending the wrong message.

I look at families a lot to determine candidate authenticity, and unfortunately O'Bama wins the battle here. I say unfortunately because it's McCain that is running on personality, not O'Bama. If you watched the conventions, you saw Barack's children on stage with their mother, and how they reacted to seeing him on the video monitor. I don't care who you are, you can't train a 6-year old girl to hog the microphone THAT well and you can't train her to say "I love you daddy" and make it look unrehearsed, unless it is. That was an authentic moment.

Unfortunately again, it's McCain's campaign that is playing the "family values" card, with Palin's small-town virtues being the Ace in the deck. But she has a 17-yr old daughter that's pregnant., and where I come from, that kind of thing only happens either when there is non-consensual activity involved, or when the children do not have a moral foundation. Further, with an infant baby (Down syndrome is irrelevant) and 4 other kids, a really good mother with strong family values should not be throwing herself into the hate-hate relationship that is political media. I think she should stay in the lower tiers of government until her household is a little... emptier, so that she can properly raise her children with the small-town ethics that the campaign is asserting.

More to come soon, I have to get to a meeting...

B.B.A. Management Information Systems

The following is an email that I wrote to the MIS Department Head, Dr. Richard Watson, regarding an article that I read in the Atlanta Business Chronicle about MIS students:

Hello Dr. Watson,

Salutations! My name is Daniel Fowler, and I graduated from the MIS program last year. Now I work for the Terry College as a web developer in the Office of Marketing & Communications.

This morning I was introduced to an article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle entitled “Universities lure students back to IT,” which is being published next week as a front-page headline. I’m certain you know about this article, since you are quoted within, and upon reading it, I was motivated to action and contacted Nicole Lechene in the UGA Career Center. We are scheduling a meeting to discuss strategies for taking advantage of the market shortage of people... well… people like me.

You see, my undergraduate experience with company recruiters was not at all similar to the recruiting experiences that are highlighted by the article as common among most MIS students. I was not attracted to the things that campus recruiters had to say about the jobs that they were looking to fill, because despite the major being marketed as “a business degree focused on IT rather than an IT degree focused on business” (Tian Ross), it all sounded to me like entry-level software development and at least two years of coding. I don’t have experience with many of the programming languages listed in their job descriptions, and because of these things I became lax in my participation with SMIS and other MIS-driven opportunities, feeling as though I had too many hours under my belt to swap to Marketing or Telecommunications... Not that I even wanted to move away from MIS, because my passion for business and technology still thrived.

After graduating I struggled on my own to find the kind of companies that the ABC article heralds – ones that seem to welcome an MIS graduate with open arms. Six months later I was finally offered this contract-position as a temporary full-time staff member. But listening to the article, it proclaims that there are so many companies out there, of many varieties, just waiting for an applicant to come along that possesses the diverse skills and business prowess of an MIS grad. I’m just skeptical based on past experiences that these companies all want to lure me into a cubicle with an entry-level computer and a B.B.A. screensaver, so to speak. Instead, I desire to be what I feel like I’ve been trained to be: a problem-solver and businessman, not a troubleshooter and developer.

I apologize for this lengthy message and the anticlimactic ending, but what advice would you offer to someone like me as I prepare to sit down with a career consultant next week? Please respond at your convenience; I’m in no hurry and value your wisdom a great deal. Thank you in advance for your time.

Daniel Fowler

Social Networks

I love social networks. I have been using the internet to connect with people since long before it was cool to do so. Since you can find me on all kinds of social networking websites nowadays, I just wanted to go ahead and link you to my most active profiles:

Facebook

LinkedIn

Twitter

del.icio.us

MySpace

Welcome

Hello, while no one currently subscribes to this blog, I wanted to begin with a simple introduction to prepare you for my future posts.

My name is Daniel Fowler, I am a business graduate from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business, where I studied Management Information Systems. I also received an interdisciplinary certificate in new media from the New Media Institute at UGA.

While I graduated in business, my other passion-filled hobbies are musical theatre and psychology. Here on my blog you can expect posts regarding social online media, technology, romance, and psycho-analyses of various social behaviors.

I will try my best to title each post so that it is relevant to the contents thereof so that if you are not interested in one kind of blog entry (e.g. social online media), then you won't find yourself halfway through an entry about a different topic entirely (e.g. girl problems).

Please comment on my entries, as I love discussion. I promise you that I will read each comment and respond to most. Let's get started, shall we?