United Breaks Guitars

Word was, United Airlines broke a $3500 guitar while handling passenger baggage. Moreover, they refused to compensate the musician, who tried for months, as Social Media Risk reported.

People say, Get even, not revenge. Dave Carroll was the musician in question, and he is a man of the renaissance decade of social media. He created a complaint music video that went viral on YouTube: over 13 million views, to date.

Social Media Risk said that United Airlines’ stock plunged 10%, after this video, and that it cost shareholders $180 million.   Big numbers, definitely, and it’s nonsense to risk a 9-figure loss for a $3500 guitar.

In actuality, we don’t know for certain how much the video by itself contributed to this stock decline.  But it should serve as a warning to companies:  Don’t neglect, ignore, or otherwise mistreat your customers!

It took United Airlines a week to respond, which is an eternity in the warp-speed universe of social media, and offered to compensate Carroll.  He graciously declined at that point, as it was too late, and encouraged the carrier to donate that money, instead, to a charity of their choice.

The airlines industry in the US, in particular, has had a brutal past decade, so it can ill-afford any bad PR.  This one was a colossal faux pas.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

No Internet Tonight

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The other night I was having difficulty opening websites. I’m home in Chicago, and in general the connection is faster and more reliable in the US, than in the Middle East, where I’ve lived (Dubai) and traveled many times. So the last thing on my mind was that the internet was down.

I tried to open Facebook several times. Nothing. Then, YouTube, ESPN, and Google News, my frequently visited sites. No access. Yes, I even clicked ‘refresh’ repeatedly, and restarted my laptop two or three times.

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No, I didn’t yell at my ISP, as it was in the middle of the night. No, I didn’t write an angry missive to my congressman, either. I pray to God everyday, but this was no cause to do so or to question His judgment.

But there I was engaged in futile effort for about 20 minutes, before I calmed down and accepted that the internet was down.

I reviewed, and wrote in a couple of my many journals. I watched a couple of short videos I had downloaded. I remained hunched over my laptop, situated on a large footrest, while I sat on the sofa.

I realized how tethered our very psychology was to the internet. Perhaps like a drug we are addicted to.

I realized, too, that just because the internet was down, it didn't mean that we could no longer do things on our computer.

Finally, I remembered when my internet connection in Dubai was down for a longer stretch. I read my books. I called friends on the mobile. I unglued myself from my desk, and sat elsewhere in my flat for a change.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Oprah, Uncovered

This article is from Eva, my daughter, who wrote it for a biography project at school.  Her subject is arguably the most recognizable face in media.

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Introduction

To many people across the nation, Oprah Gail Winfrey would be considered one of greatest entertainment executives ever. She has had to sacrifice many things for fame, but eventually reached her dreams. Oprah is one of the world’s most well known talk show hosts, has launched her own production company named Harpo (Oprah spelled backwards) and has also received numerous awards including a Daytime Emmy Award in 1987. Because Winfrey was sexually abused as a child, she initiated a campaign to create a national database of convicted child abusers. She is the current owner of her restaurant called “Eccentric” (Krohn, 2009). In 1993, Bill Clinton signed “Oprah’s Bill” confirming that a national child abusers database would be established (Unknown, 2011).

Although Oprah is an extremely talented speaker and role model to young women around the world, it was not what one would call and “easy rise to fame” for her. She started speaking when she was just three years old, and her Grandmother, Hattie Mae greatly defined her style of talking to audiences. As she became older, she looked at women such as Barbara Walters and Maya Angelou for inspiration. Once Winfrey started publically speaking, people realized her incredible talent and tried to help her more fully develop it. She worked as a news anchor on WJZ- TV and was also accepted to Tennessee State University where she studied drama and speech.

Oprah has had to overcome many obstacles along the way, but has managed to maintain her fame with modesty. She is still world- wide known and owns a thriving production company along with many other attributes. Her fame has influenced many women around the world and has proved that race or gender does not determine success. In 2007, Winfrey opened an all girls school called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy which helped further develop young women’s abilities and enrich their education. She is an influential figure and fearless when it comes to helping others.

Her Childhood

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Oprah Gail Winfrey was born to Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey on January 29, 1954 in the small country town of Kosciusko, Mississippi. When she was just a baby, her mother decided to find work for herself and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She left little Oprah in the care of her strict, but caring grandmother, Hattie Mae. At a very young age, Winfrey was expected to do chores around the house and farm. Every Sunday she went to church with her grandmother and started reciting passages from the Bible. It was with Hattie Mae that she discovered her passion for speaking. As she recited the passages, people at the church she attended began to notice her. Her grandmother decided to send her to a kindergarten center in Buffalo, Mississippi, but Oprah became bored there.

In 1960, Hattie Mae became ill, so Oprah was sent to live with her mother in Milwaukee. As she adjusted to her new life, she especially disliked the noise and bustle of the busy city. In her new home, her mom discouraged Oprah’s reading abilities. Vernita eventually decided that it would be better for her daughter to live with her father, Vernon, in Nashville, Tennessee. She went to live with her father and step mother, Zelma, in 1962. Her parents were very strict, but loved Oprah very much and encouraged her growth of learning. She felt very at home with Vernon and Zelma, and was still academically advanced in school.

During the summer of 1963, Winfrey went to visit her mother back in Milwaukee. She decided to move back in with Vernita, and tried as much as she could to impress her. However, Oprah did not receive as much attention as she did from Vernon, so she turned to watching T.V. to keep herself occupied. Shows such as Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy sparked an interest in Oprah because she enjoyed watching television shows about families. One night while Vernita went to work, she left her children in the care of her 19 year- old nephew. Her cousin proceeded to rape nine- year old Oprah, but afterwards took her to get ice cream and coaxed her not to tell anyone about the encounter. She felt terrified, confused, and helpless against the assaults. Winfrey thought that if she were to confess the truth to anyone, they would not believe her. As she became a teenager, she became very wild and reckless. Oprah skipped school, dated many boys, stole money from her mother’s purse, and even ran away from home.

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Vernita’s patience with her began to wear thin, so she called a teen detention home. The detention home reported to be full, so she sent her back to Nashville to live with her father. Oprah’s parents missed her greatly, but disliked her new rebellious behavior. Vernon knew that it was his duty as a parent to steer her back on track. Little did he know, his daughter was already seven months pregnant with a child when she arrived. She wore baggy clothes to try to conceal her pregnancy and avoided telling her parents. However, she knew that she could not hide it for much longer, so she confessed to her dad. Oprah had been so stressed that she gave birth to her baby two months earlier than expected. Her baby died within the first two weeks of his life, and she tried to look as this as a lesson. Winfrey’s grades were also lowering to a C, but her father pushed her harder. Oprah ran for vice president at her new high school and won a speech contest, as well. A station named WVOL asked her if she would like to represent them in the Miss Fire Prevention Beauty Pageant. Her honest attitude and confident personality stunned the judges, and she won the contest. Later on, she also accepted a job at a radio station called WVOL as a part time news reader. Oprah was accepted to Tennessee State University where she studied speech and drama (Krohn, 2009).

Her Adult Life

In college, Oprah Winfrey continued to study hard, but also kept up with her part time job at WVOL where she was gaining real-life experience. In 1973, she received an offer from a station called WTVF-TV which was a CBS television station in Nashville. At first, she tried to turn down the offer, but eventually decided to audition for the job. During the audition, she was not sure how she was supposed to act. She imagined that she should act like Barbara Walters when she spoke. Winfrey landed the job, and became the first black newscaster in Nashville. After gaining some professional experience from this job, she began to look for new work in 1976.

She received a great offer from a news station called WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland. Oprah took the job, and was thrilled at starting out her new career with the station. However, the people of Baltimore were not particularly in favor of her warm, friendly, and down- to- earth reading style. They also disliked her speaking voice, and resided in sending her to a speech coach. In 1987, a new station manager was hired at WJZ- TV, and he wanted Oprah to co-host a new morning show called People are Talking.

Winfrey continued to host the show for six more years, but then came across another huge opportunity for a job at WLS- TV in Chicago, Illinois. In 1984, she recorded her audition tape, and the station loved it. She became a host for the popular talk show called A.M. Chicago. The people enjoyed her personality and openness so much, that in 1985, the station decided to rename the show and call it the Oprah Winfrey Show. The same year, a film producer and musician named Quincy Jones consulted Oprah to play the role of Sofia in the movie, the Color Purple. In 1986, she was even nominated for an Academy Award. Throughout her whole career, she found comfort in relieving her stress by eating food. She gained weight and felt very over worked. She did not win the award, but tried to look at the situation lightly. Because her show was thriving, she signed a deal with King World Productions which bought the national syndication rights. This meant that her show could be broadcasted to nations all over the world (Krohn, 2009).

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The new deal with King World Productions increased her salary, so she decided to start her own production company called Harpo (Oprah spelled backwards). She became the first woman in history to own her own talk show (Unknown, 2011). In 1987, she met a man named Stedman Graham who was a former model and basketball player. He worked for a program called Athlete’s Against Drugs (Krohn, 2009). Winfrey also started a campaign in 1990 to create a national database of convicted child abusers because of her childhood abuse. President Bill Clinton signed the National Child Protection Act, better known as “Oprah’s Bill” in 1993. In 1998, she stared in a movie called Beloved as a courageous African American woman named Sethe (Unknown, 2011).

In 2007, she opened an all girl’s school in South Africa called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls who show exceptional leadership qualities and are interested in excelling (Krohn, 2009). In 2008, she publically endorsed President Barack Obama and his campaign for presidential election (Unknown, 2011). She currently lives in her home in Montecito, California. Also in 2008, she created her own television network called the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). She reportedly is still with her boyfriend, Stedman Graham, but the two have not to gotten married nor had children yet (Krohn, 2009).

Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy

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Oprah Winfrey opened an all girls school located in South Africa called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy She explained in an interview that every child deserves a good education, but her school is designed for girls who show great potential and are daring to excel and develop their education. To attend the school, a young woman must be personally invited. The academy provides a curriculum that teaches girls language arts, math, natural science, social studies, arts/ culture, life orientation, economic management sciences, and technology. The students are also taught the dialects of English, Isi Zulu, Sesotho, and Afrikaans.

This is a great accomplishment on Oprah’s behalf because it provides the girls that show exceptional leadership potential with a great education and helps them further develop their learning abilities. This act has also inspired many women across the globe to pursue their dreams and work hard. It is very important that the children who are below poverty receive an education, but it is also vital that the children who show great potential be nurtured and taught. Oprah is a strong and determined woman, and took the initiative of providing advanced girls with a enhancing learning structure (Unknown, 2011).

A Role Model for Everyone

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Oprah Winfrey owns her own production company called Harpo. She worked as the host of her own talk show called The Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 years, and currently owns a television network called the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In 2007, she opened an all girls school called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South Africa for girls with outstanding leadership qualities. She has also made many generous donations to Morehouse College, the Harold Washington Library, the United Negro Fund, and Tennessee State University. In 1990- 1993, she promoted a bill about national child protection. In 2000, she issued her own magazine called “O” (Unknown, 2011).

Her great achievements and caring personality will inspire women all around the world to succeed and give their best effort. Oprah is an inspiration to black women especially because she has accomplished a great deal and always seeks to help others. She has impacted the lives of others by being herself on her talk shows and open. Winfrey’s deep and personal questions form a connection to her viewers at home. Overall she is a great woman with a strong personality that will help both men and women pursue their dreams.

Thank you for reading, and let Eva and me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Think Before You Post

I remember watching a video clip on online safety for young people. Among a number of things, it encouraged caution when uploading photos, for example, on your Facebook profile or Twitter timeline.

Using simple cinematography, it showed a printed photo pinned to the wall. Some random stranger looks at it, takes it off the wall, and walks away. That same photo reappears, as if it had quickly regenerated itself. Another random stranger takes it and walks away. Then another, when the photo reappears yet again, and so forth.

In internet and social media parlance, it’s a simple upload-download process. Virtually anyone can do it.

Sites like Facebook and Google+ have become more sophisticated in protecting our privacy, that is, carving out what amounts to an e-fence around those whom we trust, and allow in, and those whom we keep out. But just as in the physical world, such a fence cannot really keep people out, if they’re intent on getting in. Moreover, we simply cannot expect 100% that those, whom we let in, will indeed respect our privacy 100%.

Case in point is star high school athlete Yuri Wright, as reported by Sports Illustrated.

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Apparently the young man unleashed a profanity-laced set of tweets, thinking that his tweets were in fact protected and were privy only to the 1600 followers whom he allowed inside his e-fence. Wrong! Word got around, and his Catholic school expelled him. Certain universities also stopped recruiting him.

Ah, so he’s a young person, who didn’t know that his boys-locker-room talk was essentially being piped through a bullhorn in an overcrowded gym. Which had loud speakers situated for others outside to hear, just as loudly and clearly as those inside.

‘Dumb move, kid!’ Well, that’s easy enough for us adults, who are in-the-know, to say. In actuality, though, it’s not fair for us to say that.

We two billion strong on the internet are fundamentally just coming to grips with the complexity, the power, and the risks of this very phenomenon called the internet. The blackout last week by Wikipedia and company, in protest of SOPA and PIPA, was, for me, emblematic of what we’re grappling with:  privacy, and how to protect it.

It’s either an exciting or terrible irony, depending on your point of view. Facebook touts itself, for example, as forging wide-ranging connections among people across the globe. Indeed it’s so easy to make friends with people, whom we’d probably never meet in person or otherwise know about. But this freedom and ease of connection make it so easy as well for any of us to jump that e-fence I mentioned earlier, cause a breach in our privacy, and create havoc inside our hallowed circles.

What to do?

Well, I’ll go back to that clip on online safety, which, at the end of the day, is not just for young people but also for everyone. Be careful about what you upload to begin with!

If something is really private for you, keep it off the internet. Then whatever you do post, keep it tasteful, respectful and constructive.

That clip?

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

The Sound of Beauty

Slide from my communications skills training program

The mechanisms by which we communicate with each other are simplified in this graphic, because they’re far more complex. How we get others to see what we have in mind, and how they in turn decipher our efforts to do so, is, for me, an everyday miracle. When we realize that this is a back-and-forth process between two people and, moreover, when we think that in a group of people this becomes a multilinear and curvilinear process, then the fact that communications work is truly astonishing. 

With this said, it is easy to define where media and technology come into play.

Media is the means by which communications happen. It includes time honored means such as letters and telephones; TV and radio (traditional media); and e-mails, Facebook and Twitter (digital media). In many respects, technology enhances our ability and options by which to communicate, for example, smart phones, internet platforms, and bandwidth settings.

So where does the blog title ‘The Sound of Beauty’ come in? Well, it’s in reference to a TED Talk by Charles Limb ‘Building the Musical Muscle.’

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Limb is both a physician and a musician, and says that our technology is the most advanced in relation to hearing as opposed to other senses. Still, he laments that it falls quite short of helping a deaf person hear music properly.

The Cochlear Implant has amazingly restored hearing to children who were born deaf, and more importantly the ability for oral communication. Interestingly, however, while this device taps centers in our brain necessary to enable such an ability, it doesn’t tap the very centers to hear music properly.

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In this screen shot from his Talk, Limb notes that the Cochlear Implant is optimized for speech (Language), but clearly less so for Rhythm and Melody. It’s a very curious thing, and my readers who are bio-technologists or brain and hearing experts can weigh in on this.

But here are some thoughts.

As a poet, I will tell you that if you listen carefully, you’ll hear the music inherent in speech. It’s not so easy to hear this music in our native language, because we’re habituated around its functionality and not necessarily its art. But listen to others speak in another language, where the sounds of the words and sentences aren’t familiar to us, and we’re more likely to appreciate its music in the pitch and inflections of voice.

So again it’s a curious thing why someone who wears a Cochlear Implant doesn’t hear music properly. If indeed this device is optimized for speech, then I’d think it has the capacity to accommodate music. Perhaps the algorithms embedded into the device need enhancement or modification.

Or perhaps, as Limb approaches it, that person who wears the device simply needs to train his or her brain to hear music and appreciate its beauty.

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These are the points that Limb finishes his Talk with, and two final thoughts from me.

Honestly, while this Talk is primarily scientific in nature, I found myself inspired by the functional possibilities of technology for those of us who are disadvantaged in some sort of way.

But I think we’re closer to that fourth point than Limb suggests, as it relates specifically to the deaf, the Cochlear Implant, and music. He’s already demonstrated (a) the capacity of the device to decipher sound (i.e., to accommodate the complexities of communications I talked about earlier) and (b) the capacity of our brain to hear better (i.e., to be trained not only to perform music but also to perceive its beauty).

Restoration of the ability to perceive beauty is inspiring, indeed.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

What an iPad Baby Learns

This baby is indeed of the digital world. She sees the cool things that an iPad does, when she touches it. However, she tries the same thing with a colorful magazine, and it just doesn’t seem to work!

The channel owner writes,

Technology codes our minds, changes our OS. Apple products have done this extensively. The video shows how magazines are now useless and impossible to understand, for digital natives. It shows real life clip of a 1-year old, growing among touch screens and print. And how the latter becomes irrelevant. Medium is message. Humble tribute to Steve Jobs, by the most important person : a baby.

I didn’t think about it that way: Apple, among many others in media and technology, has clearly altered the operating systems (OS) of our brain! Imagine that.

In a way, this is nothing special. Rather, we already know that a baby is virtually a sponge for learning any and many new things. In this process, she formulates certain cognitive schema about the people and the world around her. Which helps her understand, navigate, and interact with additional things she encounters. So in this video, a shiny square-like thing is an iPad schema. This same schema gets triggered, when she sees another shiny squarish thing, like a magazine.

The cool thing about our brain as an OS is that it’s super-adaptable. So now that this baby has seen that not all shiny, squarish things are an iPad, she begins to refine and-or revise her schema. In time, she’ll know the difference between an iPad and a magazine, and a host of many other things in her brave new world!

Moreover, our brain is so super-complicated that no algorithm, device or technology has been able to mimic its amazing functionality.

These latter points are what’s most special to me, as takeaways from this video.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

The Emperor is Us

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The story goes like this.

The Emperor was a kind of fashion plate. He cared most of all about how he dressed and how he looked in front of his subjects. Two men arrived in town, with a marketing pitch, fit perfectly for the Emperor. They had access to the finest cloth in the land, they said, and could weave a suit with colors and patterns that were of nonpareil beauty. What made it all the more appealing was that the suit would not be visible to anyone who wasn’t right for his post and-or was flat-out stupid. In his royal conceit, the Emperor definitely wanted to know who among his subjects fit either or both profiles.

If this storyline sounds familiar, then you know it’s a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, titled ‘The Emperor’s New Suit’. The two men were in fact swindlers, who in our modern parlance not only knew how to craft a clever sales-and-marketing pitch. They were also quite attuned to the collective conceit of the Emperor and his followers. The collective bought into it, ‘hook, line and sinker,’ as we say in the US.

The story continues.

Two trusted confidantes were dispatched, separately, to check on the two weavers’ progress with the new suit. Shocked that neither could see it, and therefore fearful that they were in fact unfit or stupid, they feigned a glowing report back to the Emperor. Indeed, they said, the suit was exactly as the two weavers had promised.

So once finished, the suit made its way into the Emperor’s private chamber, where the two clever weavers dutifully helped him put it on and prepare for a royal parade. Mind you, he had nothing on, as the suit was entirely make-believe. But no one dared to admit that they saw nothing, and instead heaped oodles of accolades on the conceited Emperor. He soaked up every bit of it.

It took a little child, at last, to blurt out for many to hear, “But he has nothing on at all.” 

School project, turned unwittingly viral

Enter, this YouTube video I stumbled into. 

It was a clip from ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ show on Fox News, regarding a snafu on the ‘N’ word. It was odd that a masked dude then appeared in the middle of the clip. Moreover, the title was ‘Biggest Fox News Error in History!’ But outside of this racial blunder, I didn’t get why it was the biggest news error in history.

Then I read the description box, and here the dude explains the charade behind his video.  

Now that I’m rounding 10 million views, I’ve decided to update the description for this video. I made this a few years ago as a homework assignment for a class. It was to come in the next day with your best attempt at a “viral video”. I noticed videos showing faults in fox news got a crazy amount of hits, so I grabbed my camera and threw this together in 10 minutes. I figured it didnt have to be funny, it didnt have to be clever, it just had to say “Fox News Mistake” and have a Bill O’Reilly thumbnail for people to want to click on it.

I do feel kinda bad about waisting 10,000,000 minutes of the worlds time. Thats like 20 years. We could've cured cancer!

He uploaded the video on April 10th 2007. I don’t know when he updated his description, but as of right now his little project has garnered nearly 15 million views. With this video lasting one minute, that’s now 28 years total spent watching it. Indeed we could’ve cured more than cancer in this time span!

Modern-day Hans Christian Anderson tale

Oh, man, it’s a modern day version of that fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. In which this dude is both the clever swindlers as well as the little child. He stepped back, and saw what kind of things grabbed the attention of viewers like us, in a way that I’m sure made envy of sales and marketing professionals. For goodness sake, 15 million views!  Just 10 minutes of work on this wildly viral campaign.

Scanning just two pages of comments, we see reactions range from positive (e.g., “You deserved an A+. I fell for it exactly as you explained it in you description. Good job on this project.”) to negative (e.g., “After 10,000 dislikes youtube should pull the video!! End of story!”)  Indeed the majority of viewers who rated it were on the latter side: 17,210 likes and 45,995 dislikes, as of right now.  

Yes, it was an A+ swindle. Which, I argue, is quite a commentary about us and the phenomena of social media that we’re part of and have created. Are we this easily caught and captivated, much like the Emperor’s subjects when the swindlers came to town? No, we’re more intelligent than those townspeople and courtiers. Aren’t we?

Is Fox News in general, or O’Reilly in particular, this closely associated with mistakes or some other snafu?  I don’t watch Fox News, as I don't care for its news slant.  Still, within the intricately networked world of YouTube, I found myself in front of Fox News.

Is this dude, much like the little child, telling us, ‘Look, people, there’s really nothing here. Just a silly class project.’? Again I don’t know when he updated his description box, but apparently about five million more views hit his video afterwards. The irony of this update of course is that by the time any of us could read it, we would’ve already clicked on the YouTube thumbnail with O’Reilly on it and probably watched the whole video.

The Emperor is us

Here’s the very last part of the story.

“But he has nothing on at all,” said a little child at last. “Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child,” said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. “But he has nothing on at all,” cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the train which did not exist.

So, by the time we hear the dude’s message and realize the charade behind the video, we’re already in that intricate media web. We’ve already seen what we’ve seen, and there is no way to step back in time and erase the fact that we were fooled and caught in the trap.

I imagine, moreover, that Fox News carries on with its apparent news slant. YouTubers carry on as well with whatever they upload. We as viewers, too, carry on and bear up to the end. Perhaps as if it were no big deal. Indeed the vast majority of us neither commented nor rated it.

The Emperor, then? The Emperor is us.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD