It’s been awhile since I’ve posted on here. The reason I haven’t posted is that I’ve been in survival mode. Trying to balance work, school and home is difficult at best. Work can’t suffer, lest I become unemployed. Unemployed doesn’t allow me to pay the bills nor go to school. So I’ve prioritized life as work first, school second, family third. I’m not proud of saying that – family third. But I have a very supportive family. We carve out time to be together. It’s just different than it was with school always looming in the background.
I finished the Finance course. Rather than get into a bashing tirade about why I didn’t like it, I’ll just say that I believe the issues with the course will be corrected. No need to live in the past. Time to move on.
I’m working most every weekend on my dissertation. I started it in early March. Well I started it long before March in finding a topic and doing lots of reading on that topic. I officially started writing in March. I’m about 5 weeks into it. My topic relates to studying the nursing workforce’s affinity for the use of social media. Since I have solid contacts in Asia, Australia and the US I am hoping to collect data in all 3 countries. I’ve learned a tremendous amount about Web 2.0 technology in the past couple of months.
Here’s how my study opens….
“Social media technologies have gathered widespread public acceptance during recent years, but they are still gaining traction in the workplace. As recently as 2003, when MySpace was founded and social media became more prevalent as a communications tool, many people had never heard of the term “social media.” No one could have predicted the impact that these new tools would have on the future of communications. In just eight years, the world has witnessed massive changes in the ways people interact with each other and monitor multiple news sources. More people choose to log on—to post messages for friends, colleagues, and clients via Facebook pages, send Twitter tweets from their mobile devices, upload blog entries, or share links to their favorite YouTube videos and web casts.
As use of social media options as communications tools gains acceptance in the healthcare workplace, there is minimal understanding of how social media is used by a multigenerational workforce. Workplaces require smooth flow of essential knowledge between the generations, and it is therefore essential that the differences in the various uses of social networking sites be recognized and addressed so as to allow effective collaboration and learning. While many healthcare facilities initially sought to ban the use of social networking sites in their facilities, most are now recognizing that this strategy is neither feasible nor smart. Social media communications tools may have the potential to cause harm, but if managed appropriately they may also prove to be very positive and effective methods of communicating vital internal information as well as with peers across the healthcare spectrum.”
New topic. I am now in the Healthcare Informatics class. Having just completed week 1, I am very pleased with the course. It is structured in the way all of the prior courses (except for Finance) have been – it’s engaging; I’m learning; it’s worth the investment of time, effort, and money.
